POL 



INDEX. 



PTA 



43 



(ernal air, ib. ; their juices rarefied principally by the sun, to give 

 an escape to their imprisoned air, 99; a certain plant in Ireland so 

 strongly affected the person who beat it in a mortar, and the physi- 

 cian present, that their hands and faces swelled to an enormous 

 ize, and continued tumid for some time after, 96; compared with 

 animals ; similitude ; how assimilated in different climates and soils, 

 119, 120; the sensitive, that moves at the touch, lias as much per- 

 ception as the fresh-water polypus, possessed of a still slower share 

 ef molion, 119. See Caraguata, 120. See Parasite, 121. 



Plate, or Plata, a great river in South America ; its source and 

 length, 63. 



Platina. or white gold, the most obstinate of all substances, 22. 



Pleurs en Champagne, a town in France, buried beneath a rocky 

 mountain, 46. 



Pliny, in his arrangements, placed the bats among birds, 383. 



Placer, the green and gray, are birds of passage ; the Norfolk 

 plover for the most part resides here, 569, 570. 



Pochard, a kind of duck, 598. 



Poetry, our ancestors excel us in the poetic arts, 192. 



Pointer, a kind of dog, 318. 



Poison, the most deadly poisons are often of great use in medi- 

 cines, 168; fishes often live and subsist upon such substances as are 

 poisonous to the more perfect classes of animated nature ; the 

 many speculations and conjectures to which this poisonous quality 

 in some fishes has given rise, 660 ; some crabs found poisonous, 

 668 ; the seat where the poison in venomous serpents lies, 733 ; the 

 serpent-poison may be taken inwardly, without any sensible effects, 

 or any prejudice to the constitution ; if milk be injected into a vein, 

 it will kill With more certain destruction than even the poison of the 

 riper, 734. See Fire-fare. See ,Veu> Providence 



Polar regions, description of them, 3,4 ; and of the inhabitants 

 round them ; are of short stature, and savage appearance, 178. 



Pole-cat, a distinct species from the ermine ; resembles the fer- 

 ret so much, that some have thought them the same animal ; there 

 are many distinctions between them ; description of the pole-cat ; 

 very destructive to young game ; the rabbit its favourite prey ; and 

 one pole-cat destroys a whole warren by a wound hardly percepti- 

 ble ; it kills much more than it can devour ; generally reside in 

 woods or thick brakes, making holes two yards deep under ground ; 

 female brings forth in summer five or six young at a time, and sup- 

 plies the want of milk with the blood of such animals as she can 

 seize ; the fur is in less estimation than of inferior kinds, and why; 

 an inhabitant of temperate climates, being afraid of cold as well as 

 heat ; the species confined in Europe to a range from Poland to Italy, 

 333, 334 ; pole-cat of America and Virginia are names for the 

 squash and the skink ; distinctions of these animals, 338, 339 ; 

 seizes the flying-squirrel. 354. 



Poles, trade winds continually blow from them towards the equa- 

 tor, 191 ; the winter beginning round the poles, the same misty ap- 

 pearance produced in the southern climates by heat is there pro- 

 duced by cold ; the sea smokes like an oven there, 113 ; the strength 

 of the natives round polar regions is not less amazing than their 

 patience in hunger, 179 



Polynemus, description of this fish, 649. 



Polypus, very voracious ; noted for its amazing fertility ; its 

 description ; uses its arms as a fisherman his net ; is not of the 

 vegetable tribe, but a real animal; every polypus has a colony 

 sprouting from its body; and these new ones, even while attached 

 to the parent, become parents themselves, witli a smaller colony 

 also budding from them ; though cut into thousands of parts, each 

 still retains its vivacious quality, and shortly becomes a distinct and 

 complete polypus, fit to reproduce upon cutting in pieces ; it hunts 

 for its food, and possesses a power of choosing it, or retreutm:/ frv>m 

 danger, 125, 126 ; dimensions of the sea-polypus, and of that which 

 grows in freshwater; the power of dissection first tried upon these 

 animals to multiply their numbers ; Mr. Trembley has the honour 

 of the first discovery of the amazing properties and powers of this 

 little vivacious creature ; their way of living ; arms serve them as 

 lime twigs do a fowler; how it seizes upon its prey ; the cold approach- 

 ing to congelation, they feel the general torpor of nature, and their 

 faculties are for two or three months suspended ; such as are best 

 supplied soonest acquire their largest size, but they diminish also 

 iu their growth with the same facility if their food be lessened ; 

 some propagated from eggs ; some produced by buds issuing from 

 the bodv, as plants by inoculation ; while all may be multiplied by 

 cuttings, to an amazing degree of minuteness; of those produced 

 like buds from the parent stem, should the parent swallow a red 

 worm, it gives a tincture to all its fluids, and the young partake of 

 the parental colour ; but if the latter should seize upon the same 

 prey, the parent is no way benefited by the capture, all the advan- 

 tage thus remains with the young ; several young of different sizes 



are growing from its body ; some just budding forth, others ac- 

 quiring perfect form, and others ready to drop from the original 

 stem ; those young still attached to the parent, bud and propagata 

 also, each holding dependence upon its parent ; artificial method of 

 propagating these animals by cuttings ; Mr. Hughes describei a 

 species of this animal, but mistakes its nature, and calls it a sensi- 

 tive flowering plant, 833 to 83l>. 



Polypus-coral, the work of an infinite number of reptiles of that 

 kind, p37. 



Pomr.rania, a large part of it covered by the sea, 82. 



Pongo, name given by Battel to the ouran-outang, 402. 



Poppies affect with drowsiness those who walk through fields of 

 them, S6. 



Poretluin, an artificial composition of earth and water, united bj 

 heat, 49. 



Porrupinc, as to quills might be classed among the birds, 206 ; 

 its description, 1175; of all those brought into Europe, not one ever 

 seen to launch its quills, though sufficiently provoked ; their man- 

 ner of defence ; dirt-els its quills pointing to the enemy ; and Kol- 

 ben relates, the lion then will not venture an attack ; feeds on ser- 

 pents and other rrptiles ; porcupine of Canada subsists on vegeta- 

 bles ; those brought to this country for show usually fed on bread, 

 milk, and fruits ; do not refuse meat when offered ; is extremely 

 hurtful to gardens; the Americans who hunt it, believe it live* 

 from twelve to filleen years ; time of their gestation ; the female 

 brings forth one at a time : she suckles it about a month, and accus- 

 toms it to live like herself upon vegetables and the bark of trees ; 

 the porcupine never attempts to bite or any way injure- its pursuers ; 

 manner of' escaping, when hunted by a dog or a wolf; circumstances 

 concerning it remaining to be known ; little known w ith precision, 

 except what offers in a state of captivity ; description of one kept 

 in an iron cage ; the porcupine of America differs much from that 

 of the ancient continent ; two kinds, the couanda and the urson ; 

 description of both, 375 to 377. 



Porcupine of tlie sea, described, 595. 



Pork, unpalatable with us in summer, is the finest eating in the 

 warmer latitudes, 224. 



Por/ioisf, or porpesse, a fish less than a grampus, with the snout 

 of a hog; its description and habits, 515, olti; possess, proportion- 

 ably to their bulk, the manners of whales ; places where they seek 

 for prey ; manner of killing them in the Thames ; yield a large 

 quantity of oil ; the lean of some, not old, said to be as well tasted 

 as veal ; caviar prepared from the eggs of this fish, 626, 627. 



Ports choked up with sand by the vehemence of the wind, 102. 



Pouch, or bag, receptacle of the civet, 341. See Bustard, 504. 

 See Pelican, 576, 



Poultry, general characteristics of the poultry kind ; nearly all do- 

 mestic birds of this kind maintained in our yards, are of foreign extrac- 

 tion ; the courtship of this kind is short, and the congress fortuitous ; 

 the male takes no heed of his offspring; though timorous with birds of 

 prey, he is incredibly bold among his own kind; the sight of a male 

 of fiis own species produces a combat ; the female takes all the la- 

 bour of hatching and bringing up her young, choosing a place re- 

 mote from the cock, 492. 493. 



Powis Land, in Wales, for many ages famous for a swift and 

 generous race of horses. 222. 



I'lnrtr.rs, a variety of the tame pigeons, 532. 



Pri-ynancy of some women found to continue a month beyond 

 the usual time, 132 ; of all animals, in point of time, is proportioned 

 to their size. 212 ; in that state no animals, except the hare, receive 

 the male, 346 ; the duration in the female of the elephant still un- 

 known, 421. 



Prctfurts, perpendicular in rivers, always in exact proportion to 

 the depth, 59. 



Prey, all the males of these birds less and weaker than the fe- 

 males,' 472. See Birds. 



Pricket, name hunters give the buck the second year, 266. 



Propagation of enats. ul) e f>f the strangest discoveries in natural 

 history, &&i ; a new kind lately discovered in a most numerous tribe 

 of animals, propagated by cuttings, 82d ; different manner of that 

 operation in the polypi, 836. 



Pro/iulis, a rc.inous gum, with which bees plaster the inside of 

 their hives, 802. 



Proportion of the human figure, very little known with precision 

 in regard to it, 148. 



Provider, of the lion, what has given rise to the jackal's being so 

 called, 208. 



Psalmudi, an island in France, in A. D. 815, now six miles from 

 the shore, 81. 



Ptarmigan, sort of grouse, chiefly found in heathy mountains 

 and piny forests, 505, 500. 



6L* 



