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Mark the eagle's stern and pitiless eyebrow, and shun the impe- 

 rious man whose eye and brow resembles the eagle's, unless some 

 other countervailing features shall largely redeem his countenance. 

 Only yesterday a fine bold little boy in his third year, and fami- 

 liar enough with domestic beasts and birds, beheld a tame raven 

 for the first time, quietly seated upon its perch. The child 

 evinced a sudden terror and antipathy, perceiving at once that 

 he was in the presence of danger, and of an enemy, that would in- 

 flict some cruel injury if it could. That child will be a shrewd 

 physiognomist some day, if he be spared to scan and to encounter 

 human rogues and ravens. 



Repulsive, formidable, and disgusting is the dog-faced baboon 

 of the Cape. Yet he has need perhaps of some special ferocity 

 to defend his female and her young offspring from wolves, and 

 himself from the dreaded panther. He may not be so wicked 

 after all as he looks. The vultures, and the adjutant-bird of 

 India are in ugly and unpleasant conformity with their habits as 

 scavengers and devourers of carrion. Ghastly is the hyena, as 

 behoves his nightly plundering of the graves ; horrible and hi- 

 deous the forms of various rapacious fishes. Crocodiles, and most 

 of the serpents, proclaim themselves to be fell and dangerous 

 enemies to man. Other animals share his fear of them and his 

 abhorrence. It is never safe to neglect the instinctive warning 

 that we receive from the physiognomy of an animal. 



Nature itself thus informs us that the world contains many a 

 perilous presence ; that we must walk warily and wisely to be 

 secure, and ever prepared for self-defence. 



The hideousness of some marine fishes and of certain reptiles 

 is however sometimes of a self-protective kind. That of the 

 common toad can hardly be surpassed. But if its aspect is as 

 disgusting to animals that prey freely on the frog, such as rats, 

 foxes, foumarts, and cats, as to mankind, then ugliness is pro- 

 tective to it. That this may be so as to rats, and also cats, I 

 have strong reason to believe ; for one or two toads were always 

 to be found in a particular flower-border constantly visited by 

 rats, and where no frog could have lived twenty-four hours. 



