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M Y O P O R I N JE M Y R I P R I S T E S. 



in the book of living nature. The authors alluded to 

 describe the coypou as inhabitng the banks of the 

 rivers, where it digs a burrow with its claws ; and it 

 must be admitted that, from their structure, they are 

 well adapted for such a purpose. It is said to be an 

 excellent swimmer, very gentle and inoffensive in its 

 manners, and by no means difficult to tame. In a 

 domesticated state it is also very accommodating in 

 respect of food, eating almost anything that is given 

 to it ; and it shows much gratitude and affection to 

 those who are attentive to it arid supply its wants. 

 It is rather a fertile animal, the female producing as 

 many as six or seven at a litter ; but then its skin is 

 in such request as an article of commerce, that it is 

 sought for and destroyed with nearly the same avi- 

 dity as the beaver is in North America. It is not a lit- 

 tle remarkable that an animal resembling the beaver 

 so much as this does in the system of its teeth, should 

 yet be so very different in the economy of its habi- 

 tation. The beaver never burrows, even, we believe, 

 in the case of those solitary individuals which, for 

 causes unknown to us, are expelled from the regular 

 communities ; and, excepting in the case of those ex- 

 pulsions (and they form the exception, not the rule), 

 the beaver is a social animal. The coypou, on the 

 other hand, burrows, but never builds, though it pro- 

 bably carries leaves and grass into its burrow in the 

 breeding season, as is done by almost all animals 

 which frequent the banks of rivers, or otherwise form 

 their habitations in humid ground. The difference of 

 character in the places which they inhabit may be one 

 cause of the difference in manners between this animal 

 and the beaver. The streams of the northern parts of 

 North America, upon the banks of which the beaver is 

 most abundant, are subject to be flooded for a consider- 

 able time during the spring freshes ; and thus a burrow 

 so constructed as to allow the animal an outlet under 

 water, and a dwelling in the air at the same time, 

 could not be formed but at an expense of more labour 

 than the beaver requires to exercise in the building of 

 its hut. Where the coypou inhabits, floodings are 

 by no means so common, and when they do occur, 

 they are of very short duration. They do not occur 

 in tropical South America, and hardly, indeed, nearer 

 the equator than the thirtieth degree of south lati- 

 tude ; and, though the countries there have their rainy 

 seasons, drought is the prevailing character. Chili, 

 Tucurnan, and part of Buenos Ayres, are the places 

 where chiefly this curious animal is found ; and they 

 are countries very unlike in their physical geography 

 to the beaver's country in North America. Still it 

 is not uninteresting to find that though the northern 

 part of the American continent is subject to greater 

 vicissitudes of seasons, and more severity of cold in the 

 winter, than any other part of the world, while in the 

 south the seasons are comparatively uniform, and a 

 tropical character is preserved up even to the Strait 

 of Magalhaen ; yet that both are fur countries, and 

 fur countries to a very considerable extent. It is 

 true that the furs of the south are not so numerous, 

 and perhaps not so valuable, as the better ones of the 

 north ; but a country which furnishes the chinchilla 

 from its dry hills, and the coypou from the banks of 

 its streams near the mountains, must always be re- 

 garded as an important fur country. As is the case 

 with the whole of South America, we want informa- 

 tion with regard to the peculiar localities of the covpou 

 MYOPORIN^E. A small natural order of plants, 

 comprising four genera and eighteen species, already 



described. They are mostly natives of New Holland 

 and the South Sea Islands. The leaves are simple, alter- 

 nate, or opposite, with no stipulae. The flowers are 

 scarlet, white, or blue coloured, axillary, and without 

 bracteae. This order contains Myoporum, Bontia, 

 Avicennia, and Stenochilus : the last being the hand- 

 somest of the order. The Avicennias are shore 

 plants like the mangroves, shooting their long roots 

 to a great distance among the mud, or on the surface, 

 five or six feet before they turn downwards to fix 

 themselves. All the species may be kept in the stove 

 or greenhouse, and only require ordinary treatment. 

 MYRI APOD A hundred legs(Latreille). Under 

 this name Latreille united together the two orders 

 Chilognatha and Chilopoda of Leach, which it is true 

 possess many characters in common, as stated in the 

 article upon the former of these two orders, but 

 which have been considered as being respectively 

 of equal rank with the orders of winged insects by 

 our English authors, whose classification we have in 

 this respect adopted. 



MYRICA (Linnaeus). A genus of deciduous 

 and evergreen shrubs found in different parts of the 

 globe, one of which, the M. gale,\s the sweet gale of 

 Britain, and the M. cerifera is the candle-berry myrtle 

 of North America. The flowers are dioecious, and 

 the genus belongs to Amentacece. The root of M. 

 cerifera is a powerful astringent, but it is more prized 

 for the wax it bears than as a medicine ; and in some 

 parts of North America, where animal tallow is 

 scarce, ks annual crop of wax is collected and made 

 into candles. Our common gale yields wax, but 

 much less abundantly. 



MYRIPRISTES. A genus of spinous finned 

 fishes, belonging to the perch family, having the ab- 

 dominal fins under the pectorals. They are covered 

 with beautiful scales, and have two rows of toothed 

 scales on the gill-lid, but no spine at its angle. One 

 of their most remarkable characters is the form and 

 situation of the air-vessel, which is divided into two 

 lobes anteriorly, and attached to the bones of the 

 cranium ,in such a manner as to separate entirely the 

 cavity which contains those hard substances which 

 are understood to be the principal organs of hearing 

 in fishes. The intimate connexion between the air- 

 vessel and these organs in this genus of fishes is a 

 singular point in natural history ; but it is one the 

 physiology of which is involved in great obscurity. 

 There is a curious connexion between the characters 

 of different latitudes, and those of the fishes most 

 abundant in these latitudes, which cannot be ex- 

 plained, either by the slight difference of tempera- 

 ture of the sea, or by the different action of the solar 

 beams considered merely as light and heat. The 

 tropical fishes are remarkable above all others for 

 their brilliancy, and for the superior development of 

 those organs which we suppose contribute to the 

 sense of hearing; and it should seem that fishes are 

 far more sensible to, and far more influenced by, the 

 different electric states of the regions which they inr 

 habit, than we would at first suppose. There is also 

 an obvious connexion between the air-bladder in 

 fishes and their susceptibility to electric influence ; 

 though what it is, or how it operates, we are unable 

 to tell. There is no question, however, but that, in the 

 case of tropical fishes, which inhabit where the sea is 

 often subject to violent thunder-storms, there is a sort of 

 presentiment, or affection of their systems, by means of 

 which they anticipate the storm and avoid its violence. 



