234 
Sir Everard Home on 
ever the opportunity occurs, to collect materials by which 
science may be still farther advanced. 
To those who include Comparative Anatomy among their 
pursuits, it will be gratifying to know that the pickle, or 
brine, in which the salt provisions are preserved, is well fitted 
for preserving the internal parts of animals, keeping them in a 
state better adapted for examination, dissection, and injection, 
than they are found to be after having long remained in spirit. 
The first discovery I shall mention, is a peculiarity in the 
structure of the hind flipper or foot of the walrus, that has 
not been adverted to ; nor could it have been done now, by 
any one not well acquainted with the mechanism of the foot 
of the fly, enabling it to support its weight, and carry on pro- 
gressive motion against gravity. 
Such is the general resemblance between this flipper and 
the foot of the fly, that having upon a former occasion seen 
it in a very mutilated state, macerating in water, I disco- 
vered this analogy, and requested my friend Captain Sabine, 
in the Artillery, at the time he sailed with Captain Clavering 
to make experiments on the Figure of the Earth, to bring me 
the feet and other parts of the walrus. With the assistance 
and exertions of Mr. Rowland, Assistant Surgeon to the 
ship, he has complied with my request, and enabled me to 
bring forward the following observations on this subject. 
It is a curious circumstance that two animals, so different 
in size, should have feet so similar in their use. In the 
fly, the parts require being magnified one hundred times 
to render this structure distinctly visible ; and in the walrus, 
the parts are so large as to require being reduced four 
diameters to bring them within the size of a quarto page. 
