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Such are the manners of the common ant in Europe. In Sweden ants erect structures, which Dr. Clarke esteems far more wonderful than the pyramids of Egypt. Malouet describes black-ant hills in Guiana twenty feet high; and Smeathman and Vaillant white-ant hills in Africa of an equal size. Whether these ants bear much affinity, in respect to habits and manners, with those of Europe, a sufficient datum has not yet been furnished to prove. But of their destructive powers we have many well-authenticated accounts; and of these powers we may have no very inadequate idea when we are assured, that "no anatomist can strip a skeleton so completely as they; and that no animal, however strong, when they have once seized upon it, has power to resist thema." In Surat the Hindoos frequently feed them with flour, out of charity; placing a handful, whenever they appear.

Upon the banks of the Amazon, SPIDERS, which are solitary in Europe and Asia, live in congregated societies of several thousands. Taking possession of a tree, they unite in forming a net entirely over it. When this net is completed, they take their separate stations: each secures its own prey without disturbance; each labours for itself; but in case of damage to their net, they labour to repair it for the general good. Don Felix d'Azara first described these remarkable insects; and gives a lively description of their manners, properties, and instincts.

CORALLINA.

You, my friend, surrounded by all the luxuries of po

a

Buffon, vol. ii. 370.

"In his," says Pliny,

b Thevenot, Trav. in Indies, Part iii. p. 26.

"tam parvis tamque fere nullis quæ ratio! quanta

vis! quam inexorabilis perfectio!"

lished life, in the midst of a circle, the chief praise of which, in my estimation, is the esteem it entertains for you, may, possibly, smile at the enthusiasm, I have always expressed for ants, and that royal and illustrious insect, which fed St. John the Baptist in the wilderness. And yet, let me remind you of the pleasure, you derived from the picture of Domenichino, which represented Samson offering the honey-comb; as well as of the three cars, you saw among the ruins of Herculaneum :-One drawn by a parrot, having a grasshopper for its charioteer; the second by Sirens; and the third by two bees, guided by a butterfly.

When, too, I remind you of the fine system of morals they exhibit; of the instances they afford of industry and perseverance; of fidelity and obedience; of sagacity and ingenuity; and when I remind you, that, like the beaver, they "build like an architect, and rule like a citizen," you will at least not hesitate in joining with me, in admiring the greatness and wisdom of that awful Power, whose strength is as conspicuously observed in the smallest, as in the most gigantic of his wondrous works. Those insects indicate the most astonishing proofs of mind; while the genus in zoology, known by the name of the CORALLINA, endowed, as some one has remarked, with sensation scarcely sufficient to distinguish them from plants, from the bottom of immeasurable seas, elevate to the surface of the water the coral rocks of the vast Pacific!

These insects exhibit one of the greatest miracles in Nature. It is one of the feeblest and most imperfect of animated beings. Yet Nature avails herself of them to construct

a Huber relates, that once, when all the worker-brood was removed from a hive, and only the male-brood left, the bees appeared in a state of extreme despondency. They assembled in clusters upon their combs, and lost all their activity. The queen dropt all her eggs at random; and instead of the usual active hum, a dead silence reigned in the hive.-Kirby, i. 390.

some of the most durable of her edifices. From the bottom of vast oceans they build rocks, extending even with the surface; where, by increasing their dominion, they increase their numbers beyond all power of calculation. Of these insects some resemble snails; others are like small lobsters: they are of various shapes, sizes, and lengths; some as fine as thread, and several feet long. The most common are formed like stars, with arms from four to six inches, which they move about with great rapidity; in order, it is supposed, to catch food. Some are sluggish; others exceedingly active. Some are of a dark colour; some are blue; and others of bright yellow those of the Mediterranean are more frequently red, white, or vermilion. On the coast of Austral Asia, where their numbers are prodigious, Captain Flinders saw them of all colours; glowing with vivid tints of every shade; equalling in beauty the best flower-garden in Europe.

b

These insects Nature has employed to form islands, and to build marine continents. Nature has, therefore, been detected in one of her deeds of creation; though the substance with which the corallina forms its cell has not been ascertained. Possibly, like the honey of the bee, and the nest of the edible swallow, with its own calcareous secretions.

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a

Compared with this amazing edifice,

Raised by the weakest creatures in existence,

What are the works of intellectual man?

Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them.

Hence what Omnipotence alone could do

Worms did.

I saw the living pile ascend,
The mausoleum of its architects,

Still dying upwards as their labours closed:
Slime the material; but the slime was turn'd
To adamant, by their petrific touch.
Frail was their frames, ephemeral their lives,
Their masonry imperishable.-MONTGOMERY.

b Voy. to Terra Australis, ii. p. 88.

Captain Kotzebue, the Russian navigator, who visited these regions during his voyage of discovery, (1815 and 1818,) indulges in the following reflections upon the works which he witnessed. "The spot on which I stood filled me

Coral ceases to grow when the worm, that forms it, is not exposed to the washing of the sea. Coral rocks, therefore, never exceed the highest tide; when the tide subsides, they appear firm and compact, exceedingly hard and rugged. But no sooner does the water return, than these insects are observed peeping out of holes, which were before invisible; and their reefs rise perpendicularly from the very bed of the ocean to the surface a.

The nature of corals and corallines was first discovered by Mr. Ellis. "Your discoveries," said Linnæus, in a letter from Upsal, to that philosopher", "may be said to vie with with astonishment, and I adored in silent admiration the omnipotence of God, who had given even to these minute animals the power to construct such a work. My thoughts were confounded, when I considered the immense series of years that must elapse, before such an island can rise from the fathomless abyss of the ocean, and become visible on the surface. At a future period they will assume another shape; all the islands will join, and form a circular slip of earth, with a pond or lake in the circle; and this form will again change, as these animals continue building, till they reach the surface, and then the water will one day vanish, and only one great island be visible. It is a strange feeling, to walk about on a living island, where all below is actively at work. And to what corner of the earth can we penetrate, where human beings are not already to be found? In the remotest regions of the north, amidst mountains of ice; under the burning sun of the equator; nay, even in the middle of the ocean, on islands which have been formed by animals, they are met with! "

a The coral islands of the Pacific rise from the 30th parallel of south latitude, to 30th of north latitude. "Of the rapidity with which the coral grows, we are not in possession of sufficient information, on which to form a correct judgment. Osnaburg Island is supposed to have been only a reef of rocks, when the Matilda was wrecked there, in 1792; it is now an island, fourteen miles in length, and covered on one side with tall trees, and the lagoon in the centre is dotted with columns. The coral, therefore, has, probably, made a rapid growth since 1792, although Captain Beechey found two anchors, of a ton weight each, and a kedge anchor, which he supposes belonged to the Matilda, thrown upon the sunken reef of live coral, and around these anchors the coral had made no progress in growing, while some large shell-fish, adhering to the same rock, were so overgrown with coral, as to have only space enough left to open about an inch. It is probable, however, that the oxide proceeding from the anchors may have been prejudicial, as far as its effects extended, to the coral insect, and thus have prevented its growth. All navigators, who have visited these seas, state that no charts or maps are of any service after a few years, owing to the number of fresh rocks and reefs which are continually rising to the surface; and it is perfectly accordant with the instincts of animals, to continue working without intermission, until their labours are consummated, or their lives are extinct."-Anon b Nov. 8, 1769.

those of Columbus. He found out America, or a new India, in the west; you have laid open hitherto unknown Indies in the depths of the ocean."

VEGETABLE PROGRESSION.

MANY vegetables are so attached to climates and soils, that, if transplanted without peculiar attention to their relative economy, they die. In this they associate with certain animals. But when they have once become habituated to the change, both plants and subjugated animals improve under the care and industry of man; sometimes even more than under the influence of soil or climate. How much cultivation will effect is evident from the circumstance, that (in 1820) a cowslip grew in a garden, at Heytesbury, the stem of which rose to the height of a foot; and, measuring an inch round, contained 150 pips. There was, also, a beautiful auricula, growing in May, 1821, in the garden of Mr. Tanby of Bath, having eight distinct stalks, combined in one flat stem, completely incorporated together; and bearing a calyx, containing 107 petals. In a field, belonging to Mr. Oakley of Halford, near Ludlow, a pea produced 105 pods; and a grain of oats having accidentally fallen on a quantity of burnt clay in a field, · belonging to Mr. Juckes of Cocknage, produced 19 stems, and the astonishing number of 2,345 grains .

a M. Humboldt has observed, that "certain forms become more common from the equator to the pole; like ferns, glumaceæ, and rhododendrons, &c. Other forms increase from the poles to the equator; as the rubiaceæ, malvaceæ, and the composite plants; others attain their maximum in the temperate zone, and diminish both towards the poles and the equator; as the amentaceæ, cruciferæ, and umbelliferæ." A highly interesting work might be written on the subject of in what manner the European, Asiatic, African, and American mountains harmonize or differ in respect to their minerals, plants, insects, reptiles, fishes, birds, and quadrupeds.

In the year 1827, there grew on the farm of Bents, parish of Kirkmichael, Dumfriesshire, a root of rye, size of a Portugal onion, from which sprung sixty-six stalks, each provided with a well-filled head. It was allowed to ripen, and when pulled up, the grains were counted, and found to amount to the amazing number of four thousand and ninety-six pickles - perhaps the greatest

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