212 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Man 



bank, and with, regularly changing stroke divides the waves 1 

 Owing to this very resemblance, a celebrated natural philosopher 

 of the last century was betrayed into describing the petrified 

 skeleton of a frog of a former age as the bones of an ante- 

 diluvian man ; and on this account, too, does the fable of the 

 metamorphosis of the Lycian peasants into frogs take such hold 

 upon our fancy and strike us as so appropriate. ST. 



A Domestic Resemblance between Reptiles and Man. 



It is not uncommon to hear persons speaking of their 

 guardianship of their children as though it were a virtue. It 

 may, or may not be so, according to circumstances. But this is 

 quite certain, that the love of offspring, and the desire to guard 

 it, are exemplified by reptiles as well as by men. It may not 

 be flattering to the officious mother of a little family of children 

 to tell her that those exertions of hers for which she expects 

 so much applause, are very analogous to the efforts which a 

 respectable reptile will put forth on behalf of its progeny ; but 

 such is the fact. For Mr. Wood tells us that some spe,cies of 

 reptiles are very jealous about even their eggs. They keep a 

 strict watch over them ; and several of the larger serpents have 

 a curious fashion of placing the eggs in a heap, and then coiling 

 themselves around them in a great hollow cone, in order the 

 better to protect them from possible harm. If they do not use 

 a perambulator for them, it is obviously because that is unsuit- 

 able, and not from want of interest. IL. 



The "Climbing" Man. 



"We have all met with the man who can never do things as 

 other men do them ; who, on the ordinary levels of daily life, 

 never seems capable of standing or advancing. His mind is 

 ready enough in moving in the masses of complicated specula- 

 tions, and twisting and turning in labyrinthian schemes whose 

 tortuous windings he cannot see the end of. But directly the 

 plain, the straightforward, the firm path of everyday life is 

 under him, he staggers as if quite out of his element. So he is. 



