STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 107 



CHAPTER Y. 



Talking in Beetles. Identity of Egyptian Animals with those now 

 existing : Does this prove Fixity of Species ? Examination of 

 the celebrated Argument of Species not having altered in four 

 thousand Years. Impossibility of distinguishing Species from 

 Varieties. The Affinities of Animals. New Facts proving the 

 Fertility of Hybrids. The Hare and the Rabbit contrasted. 

 Doubts respecting the Development Hypothesis. On Hypoth- 

 esis in Natural History. Pliny, and his Notion on the Forma- 

 tion of Pearls. Are Pearls owing to a Disease of the Oyster ? 

 Formation of the Shell; Origin of Pearls. How the Chinese 

 manufacture Pearls. * 



A WITTY friend of mine expressed her sense of 

 the remoteness of the ancient Egyptians, and her 

 difficulty in sympathizing with them, by declar- 

 ing that " they talked in beetles, you know.' 1 ' 1 She 

 referred, of course, to the hieroglyphics in which 

 that curious people now speak to us from ancient 

 tombs. Whether these swarthy sages were elo- 

 quent and wise, or obscure and otherwise, in their 

 beetle-speech, it is certain that entomologists of our 

 day recognize their beetles as belonging to the same 

 species that are now gathered into collections. Such 

 as the Egyptians knew them, such we know them 

 now. Nay, the sacred cats found in those ancient 

 tombs are cats of the same kind as our own familiar 

 mousers ; they purred before Pharaoh as they purr 



