IRRITABILITY, AND MUSCULAR POWER. 



Ill 



theatres of this metropolis, and by a similar kind of harnessing was capa- 

 ble of supporting, even in an upright position, a pyramid of ten or twelve 

 men surmounted by two or three children, whose aggregate weight could 

 not be much less than 2000 pounds ; with which weight he walked repeat- 

 edly towards the front of the stage. 



The prodigious powers thus exerted by human muscles will lead us to 

 behold with less surprise the proofs of far superior powers exerted by the 

 muscles of other animals, though it will by no means lead us to the means 

 of accounting for such facts. 



The elephant, which may be contemplated as a huge concentration of 

 animal excellencies, is capable of carrying with ease a burden of between 

 three and four thousand pounds. With its stupendous trunk (which has 

 been calculated by Cuvier to consist of upwards of thirty thousand distinct 

 muscles, it snaps off the stoutest branches from the stoutest trees, and 

 tears up the trees themselves with its tusks. How accumulated the power 

 that is lodged in the muscles of the lion ! With a single stroke of his paw 

 he breaks the back-bone of a horse, and runs off with a buffalo in his jaws 

 at full speed : he crushes the bones between his teeth, and swallows them 

 as a part of his food. 



Nor is it necessary, in the mystery of the animal economy, that the 

 muscles should always have the benefit of a bony liver. The tail of the 

 whale is merely muscular and ligamentous ; and yet this is the instrument 

 of its chief and most powerful attack ; and possest of this instrument, to 

 adopt the language of an old and accurate observer,* a long boat he 

 valueth no more than dust, for he can beat it all in shatters at a blow." 

 The skeleton of the shark is entirely cartilaginous, and totally destitute of 

 proper bone ; yet is it the most dreadful tyrant of the ocean : it devours 

 with its cartilaginous jaws whatever falls in its way ; and in one of its spe- 

 cies, the squalus carcharias^ or white shark, which is often found thirty 

 feet long, and of not less than four thousand pounds weight, has been 

 known to swallow a man whole at a mouthful. 



The sepia octopodia^ or eight-armed cuttle-fish — the polypus of Aristotle 

 — is found occasionally of an enormous size in the Mediterranean and 

 Indian seas, its arms being at times nine fathoms in length, and so pro- 

 digious in their muscular power, that when lashed round a man, or even a 

 Newfoundland dog, there is great difficulty in extricating themselves ; and 

 hence the Indians never venture out without hatchets in their boats, to cut 

 off the animal's holders, should he attempt to fasten on them, and drag 

 them under water. 



But this subject would require a large volume, instead of occupying the 

 close of a single lecture. Let us turn from the great to the diminutive. 

 How confounding to the skill of man is the muscular arrangement of the 

 insect class ! Minute as is their form, there are innumerable tribes that 

 unite in themselves all the powers of motion that characterize the whole of 

 the other classes ; and are able, as their own will directs, to walk, run, 

 leap, swim, or fly, with as much facility as quadrupeds, birds, and fishes 

 exercise these faculties separately. But such a combination of functions 

 demands a more complicated combination of motive powers ; and what it 

 demands it receives. In the mere larve or caterpillar of a cosus, or insect 

 approaching to the butterfly, Lyonet has detected not less than four thou- 



* Frederick Martens. See Shaw, II. ii, 489." 



