AND OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 



43 



Hill-House, near Holyrood, who lias reared him from the nest, whence, 

 near Inverleithen, he was taken upwards of twenty-three years ago. He, 

 like many of his captive brethren, is celebrated for his talking propensi- 

 ties, and especially for the distinctness with which, when interrogated 

 concerning the illustrious generals of our time, he pronounces the name 

 of his great name-father, not only in his native dialect, good broad 

 Scotch, but also, at the pleasure of his interlocutor, both in a pure En- 

 glish, and genuine Irish accent. We are likewise informed that he 

 barks so successfully that his voice can scarcely be distinguished from 

 that of a good watch-dog. He possesses, too, all the pugnacity of his 

 species. At one time an Owl was made the companion of his soli- 

 tude, which, after a few days endurance, he slew and devoured : a com- 

 mon Rook was next tried ; and, for a few weeks, he seemed pleased with 

 his associate, but it soon also shared the fate of the Owl. He has this 

 peculiarity, that the second primary feather of both wings is of a pure 

 white colour, so that he is pie-bald, a trait not very uncommon in his 

 race, some of whom have been noticed wholly white. Another, and 

 what we should consider a far rarer peculiarity, is his having shed, three 

 years ago, the upper mandible of the bill. We are not aware that this 

 occurs naturally in any bird, and hence we should suspect it to have 

 been the result of some blow or bruise, often the occasion of such an oc- 

 currence in the nail. Arthur, however, was not known to have been 

 the subject of such an injury. Whether his years will reach the limit of 

 a century, as some Ravens are recorded to have done, our posterity alone 

 are likely to ascertain. 



SUPPOSED POEM OF THE DINOTHERIUM AND MASTODOV. 



Many of our readers may be surprised to learn, that from such a cranium as 

 we represented in our last Number but one, and other fossil bones, any sa- 

 tisfactory conception could be formed of the general shape and appearance 

 of the whole animal. But wonders far greater than this have been ef- 

 fected in fossil geology, insomuch that the late Baron Cuvier, or any ac- 

 complished anatomist of his school, could from any of the small bones of 

 the body, or even from an insignificant fragment of one, ascertain what 

 the animal really was, — its genus, — species, — and, if it belonged to none 

 of the known ones, could, from these remains, form others new and dis- 

 tinct. This is, in fact, in the expressive words of Professor Whewel], 

 "the great Cuvierian maxim, that from the fragment of a bone we can re- 

 construct the skeleton of the animal." This, however, is a wide field, on 

 which we must not expatiate ; and, in illustration of our position, we 

 merely state, that the lineaments of the Dinotherium giganteum, and the 

 Mastodon, as represented by Professor Kaup, are received with con- 

 fidence by M. de Blaiuville and other Naturalists as close approxima- 

 tions to the truth. 



Professor Buckland states, that the Dinotherium must have been the 

 largest of terrestrial Mammalia, and Cuvier and Kaup calculate it must 

 have measured 18 feet. With a sentence from the Oxford Professor's 

 Bridgewater Treatise, concerning the remarkable tusks of the animal, we 

 shall conclude this notice. " It is mechanically impossible that a lower 

 jaw, nearly four feet long, loaded with such heavy tusks at its extremity, 

 could have been otherwise than cumbrous and inconvenient to a Quadru- 

 ped living on dry land. No such disadvantage would have attended this 

 structure in a large animal destined to live in water ; and the aquatic ha- 

 bits of the family of Tapirs, to which the Dinotherium was most nearly 

 allied, render it probable that, like them, it was an inhabitant of fresh- 

 water lakes and rivers. To an animal of such habits, the weight of the 

 tusks sustained in water would have been no source of inconvenience; and, 

 if we suppose them to be employed as instruments for raking and grubbing 

 lip by the roots of large aquatic vegetables from the bottom, they would, 

 under such service, combine the mechanical powers of the pick-axe with 

 those of the horse-harrow of modern husbandry. The weight of the head, 

 placed above these downward tusks, would add to their efficiency for the 

 service here supposed, as the power of the harrow is increased by being 

 loaded with weights." 



ELECTRIC EEL AT THE ADELAIDE GALLERY. 



Ma Bradley, Director of the Gallery of Practical Science, has lately 

 ■communicated the following letter to our contemporary the Magazine of 

 Natural History: — " I feel persuaded that your readers will be interested 

 in hearing that the Gymnotus I described on a former occasion is still liv- 

 ing and thriving. Kept in a room daily frequented by multitudes of per- 

 sons, with only a borrowed light from the sky-light, and never feeling the 

 direct rays of the sun ; confined in a vessel in which it cannot now 

 stretch itself out at full length; kept warm by water artificially heated, 



and fed with fish not indigenous to the country it inhabits, what must 



be the power of adaptation to external circumstances possessed by the 

 animal, which admits of its not only living, but even growing and increas- 

 ing in strength, under such total change of habits, food, and climate ! 



I believe you remember that when we first began to experiment on its 

 electrical powers, we could only produce those phenomena which depend 



on the tension of the electricity, as the spark, &c, by employing second- 

 ary currents ; now, on the contrary, we have discarded Henry's coil from 

 our apparatus, and invariably succeed, not only in obtaining a direct 

 spark, but even the deflagration of gold leaves, these being mutually at- 

 tracted from a sensible distance, and burning on coming into contact : if 

 this arise partly from increased skill in our mode of manipulation, it 

 must also be assigned, in an equal degree, to the increased power of the 

 Eel. 



Nevertheless, convinced as I am that not even the vital power of this 

 animal can long withstand so total a change in its natural habits, I should 

 be very glad to transfer it to some institution, where, while it could enjoy 

 fresher air, and direct light, it would meet with attention to temperature 

 and cleanliness equal to what it has had from us ; and in that case I see 

 no reason why it might not be kept alive for years." 



METEOROLOGY. 



SHOOTING STARS OBSERVED, AUGUST 10, 1839. 



Is our Number for September last, we introduced the subject of Periodic 

 Shooting Stars to the attention of our readers, and quoted certain obser- 

 vations made on the 10th — 12th of August, by M. Boguslowski at Bres- 

 law, M. Forsterat Brussels, and Professor Powell at Tunbridge- Wells. To 

 these we now add some interesting remarks published in November last by 

 our celebrated astronomer, Sir James South. " The evening of the 10th 

 of August was fine, and for a considerable time the sky was cloudless. 

 Busied in my observatory, with my ordinary astronomical occupations, 

 whilst the twilight was yet strong enough to render the leading article of 

 the Times legible, though with some difficulty, a servant coming to me 

 from a distant part of the premises put an early period to my astronomical 

 work, by announcing that ' he had just seen the largest fire-ball that he 

 had ever seen in his life.' A celestial globe being brought out on the 

 lawn for the purpose of tracing their tracts, and a loud beating clock 

 being set with that at the transit instrument, by which the instant of dis- 

 appearance of any of these bodies might be noted, between 22 ' after nine 

 o'clock, and 2 ' after midnight, 165 shooting stars were not only seen, 

 but their flight among the fixed stars, and their disappearance to the 

 nearest tenth of a second, registered. Between 5 ' after midnight, and 

 29' after one in the morning, 150 were seen. Clouds, which continued 

 till day-light, prevented further observation. Of these the principal part 

 resembled stars of the sixth magnitude, stealing from one part of the 

 heaven to another. Many were as bright as stars of the first magnitude. 

 Several had a brilliancy many times surpassing that of the planet Venus, 

 whilst some few, apparently of a discal form, were not unlike the planet 

 Jupiter, as seen with a magnifying power of fifty or sixty. These, as well 

 as those of the two preceding classes, prior to their disappearance, fre- 

 quently burst into thousands of intensely luminous points, the light pro- 

 duced being such as to excite the attention of even the most careless by- 

 stander. The directions which these fugitives took were very various, 

 as was the extent of arcs they traversed; generally they took their 

 course from the zenith towards the horizon, but in several instances they 

 passed from horizon to zenith: some appeared when within ten or fifteen 

 degrees of the horizon, and disappeared in it. Every part of the heavens 

 teemed with them. The constellations, however, of Cassiopeia and Per- 

 seus, were most prolific." 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Remarks on the Development, Structure, and Diseases of the Teeth. By 

 Alexander Nasmyth, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. London, Churchill, 

 1839, pp. 180, with seven plates. 



With much pleasure we hail the appearance of a work on the science of 

 Odontology, by Mr Nasmyth, who, after having for a number of years di- 

 rected particular attention to the subject, and contributed a number of ex- 

 cellent papers to various scientific institutions, is about to publish the 

 result of his labours in a systematic treatise. 



The portion of the work before us consists solely of an Historical 

 Introduction to the science, commencing with the earliest notices in the 

 writings of Herodotus and Hippocrates, and coming down to the present 

 day ; the author herein following a prevailing fashion in the plan of 

 scientific works, — one which we regard as peculiarly open to criticism and 

 condemnation. Mr Nasmyth has, at the same time, executed his task 

 with ability, and manifests a thorough acquaintance with the subject. 

 After gleaning the observations to be found in the works of Aristotle, 

 Areteus, Pliny, and Galen, and supplying the details to be found in the 

 Arabian, and early Italian and French schools, including the doctrines of 

 Vasalius, Eustachius, and Ambrose Pare, he proceeds to the new views 

 promulgated by Malpighi, Leuwenhoek, Bertin, Winslow, and Hunter, 



to the modern anatomical era, commencing with Bichat and Blandin, 



— to what has been done in Great Britain by Blake, Fox, and Bell; in 

 France, by Tenon, the Baron and M. F. Cuvier, De Seres, and Rousseau ; 

 and in Germany, by Webber, Schregcr, and Wagner. Of the recent la- 



