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that timorous helpless creature is warned of the least 

 approach of danger. In others, it is co?ered to keep 

 out noxious bodies. In those which are forced to 

 mine and dig for their habitation, it is short, and 

 lodged deep and backward in the head. Thus moles 

 have no auricle at all, but only a round hole between 

 the neck and shoulder, and this is closed with a little 

 skin, which opens and shuts like an eye-lid. The 

 sea-calf also, as well as lizards and serpents, have no 

 outward ear, and the tortoise, with most kind of 

 fishes, have the passage quite covered over. 



But among all the varieties in the structure of this 

 organ, none are more remarkable than those of the 

 passage into the os petrosurn. In an owl, which 

 perches upon a tree or beam, and hearkens after the 

 prey beneath her, it comes farther out above than, 

 below, for the better reception of sounds from beneath. 

 In a fox, which scouts under the prey at roost, it 

 comes farther out below than above. In a pole-cat, 

 which hearkens straight forward, it is produced be. 

 hind, for the taking a forward sound. Whereas a 

 hare, whose enemy comes behind, is supplied with a 

 bony circle directed backward,' by means of which 

 she receives distinctly the smallest sound which comes 

 that way. 



The more accurate the sense of Smelling is in any 

 creature, the longer are the laminze in the nostrils, 

 and the more in number, folded up and crowded to- 

 gether, to contain more nervous filaments, and to de- 

 tain the odoriferous particles in their windings and 

 turnings. An admirable provision this for the good of 

 many creatures, the chief acts of whose lives are per- 

 formed by the ministry of this sense. In insects and 

 many other creatures it is of great use, in helping them 

 to proper places for hatching their eggs, and 'breeding 

 up their young : and most irrational animals, beasts, 

 birds, and reptiles, do by their smell lind out their 

 food. With what sagacity do some of them discover it, 

 in the midst of mud and dirt. How curiously do otherg 

 pick aod abuse such plants as afford them wholesome 



