Ins] AND SYMBOLS. 179 



light more freely. If they have not sufficient time to place 

 them in safety, they take them under their paws, clasp them 

 to their breast, and throw themselves with desperate audacity 

 against the fishermen and against their boats. The young 

 walruses exhibit a similar devotion and a similar intrepidity 

 when their parents are in peril. They have been known, when 

 placed apart in security, boldly to quit the asylum chosen for 

 them by anxious affection, and take their share in the struggle 

 in which the mother was engaged, to sustain her efforts and 

 participate in her dangers. It is not uncommon for us to boast 

 that the family solicitude and regard for each other's interests 

 which we frequently see in English homesteads is the result of 

 our civilisation. No doubt civilisation refines and elevates 

 whatever it touches, but it is certainly entitled to very little 

 credit in this matter. The care which the individuals of certain 

 species take of one another is a simple instinct of their nature, 

 for which they are no more entitled to credit than they are for 

 eating when they are hungry or sleeping when they are sleepy. 

 A parent walrus cannot be supposed to think of merit when 

 she protects her young, any more than the young walrus thinks 

 of merit when defending its parents. But how often, when 

 services are performed by human parents for their children, or 

 by children for their parents, it is considered on all sides that 

 something quite meritorious has been accomplished. Let us 

 rather say, on such occasions, that instinct has asserted her 

 beautiful and simple sway. Nor would it be out of place to 

 remind those parents and children who refuse to render to each 

 other the services which Nature has imposed upon them, that 

 the walrus has a lesson for them. Let them in utter abasement 

 turn from their worldly moralities, logical quibbles, and human 

 selfishness, and gaze towards the northern seas on those heroic 

 tragedies of the parents and children of a species stirred and 

 directed by the impulses of Nature only. MY. 



The Insusceptible Character. 



Amid the tribes of insects, so particularly influenced by 

 seasons, there are a few which appear little affected by common 

 events. The brown meadow butterfly (papilio janira), so well 



