Zoology: its present Phasis, ^c. 5473 



for their superiors, and other qualities. They are architects, and they 

 dig, wage war, and extract various substances from plants and from the 

 earth and water. They are able to communicate their wants, their 

 pleasures and their pains, their apprehensions of danger and their 

 prospects of future good, by modulating their voices accordingly. 

 Each individual of every species has its own particular language, 

 which is perfectly understood by the rest. They ask and give 

 assistance to each other. They make their necessities known, and 

 this branch of their language is more or less extended, in proportion 

 to the number of their wants. Gestures and inarticulate sounds are 

 the signs of their thoughts."* 



J. C. Atkinson. 



Danby Parsonage, Grosmont, 

 York. 



Zoology : its present Phasis and future Prospects. By R. Knox, 

 M.D., F.R.S.E., Lecturer on Anatomy, and Corresponding 

 Member of the Academie Imperiale de Medicine of France. 



Section I. 



The section of Natural History which treats of animals, their 

 nature, habits, and uses to man, when they happen to be of use 

 to him, which is but seldom, is now fairly embarked in a new 

 career. Like other arts and sciences, it has become industrial : 

 this is the phrase, I believe — industrial. The greatest, the most 

 accurate of all the observers of antiquity, the man who combined 

 within the compass of his vast intellect a much greater amount of 

 science, literature and art than any mortal since his time — Aristotle — 



* I cannot refrain from subjoining the following striking passage, which I take 

 from 'Psychological Enquiries:'—" It is observed by a modern writer 'that there is 

 hardly a mechanical pursuit in which insects do not excel. They are excellent 

 weavers, house-builders, architects. They make diving-bells, bore galleries, raise 

 vaults, construct bridges. They line their houses with tapestry, clean them, ventilate 

 them, and close them with admirably fitted swing-doors. They build and store 

 warehouses, construct traps in the greatest variety, hunt skilfully, rob and plunder. 

 They poison, strangle and sabre their enemies. They have social laws, a common 

 language, division of labour and gradations of rank. They maintain armies, go to 

 war, send out scouts, appoint sentinels, carry off prisoners, keep slaves and tend 

 domestic animals. In short, they are a miniature copy of man rather than that of the 

 inferior Vertebrata." 



XV. s 



