THE BAY BAMOO RAT. 



611 



rabbit or fowl for the mere sake of sucking the hot blood as it pours from the fatal 

 wound. 



The tree-loving and agile squirrel plays the same part among the rodents as the 

 monkey among the quadrumana : the flying squirrels have a close analogy to thecolugo 

 and the petaurists, and they again to the bats, which in their turn partake largely of the 

 bird character and formation. The beaver and ondatra are evident reproductions of 

 the aquatic idea, which is more thoroughly developed in the seals and whales, and is 

 carried out to its greatest perfection in the fishes. The rodent capybara again, with its 

 thick, coarse, bristly hair, heavy form, hoof-like claws and water-loving propensities is no 

 indifferent representation of the pachydermatous water hog, which also may be looked 

 upon as corresponding to the dugong and manatee. Lastly, the aspalacidae, or rodent 

 mole rats, are wonderfully similar to the true insectivorous moles, both in habit and 

 formation of body. 



In many instances this phenomenon is exhibited in the reverse order, the members 

 of other groups exhibiting a tendency towards the rodent type. The aye-aye, for 



BAY BAMBOO RAT.-Rhlzomys baalus. 



example, a quadrumanous animal, displays so strong a resemblance to the squirrels, 

 that it was long ranked together with those animals by systematic naturalists. The 

 hyrax again, or klip-daas, a pachydermatous animal, and allied closely to the hippopo- 

 tamus, is externally and even in the arrangement of its teeth, so rabbit-like in form, that 

 it was as a matter of course placed among the rodents, until Cuvier's accurate eye dis- 

 covered its true character. The insect-eating tupaias of Java, with their arboreal habits 

 and long bushy tails are so like the squirrels that the popular name of a squirrel and a 

 tupaia is identical in the countries where they reside. 



Thus, in this single order, we find external representatives of every idea which is 

 embodied in the whole series of vertebrated animals, and cannot but notice the curious 

 tendency which is found throughout the entire animal kingdom of each province to 

 intersect several others, and to receive some of their privileges without detriment to 

 their perfection. In no instance is the boundary of any single province defined with a 

 clear line of demarcation, and in every case the outline is extremely irregular, sending 

 out peninsulas into the neighboring districts and receiving into its own territory some 

 portion of another district. Sometimes these embodied ideas seem to bear some analogy 



