is scarce any food it will at all times like, it strips the
tops of houses of tiles or thatch, lays waste the labours
of the gardener, roots up the choicest seeds, and nips
favourite flowers in the bud; is still more falacious than
the cock; requires five females at least to attend him,
and the number not sufficient, will run upon and tread
the sitting hen; the peahen as much as possible hides
her nest from him, that he may not disturb her sitting;
she seldom lays above five or six eggs in this climate;
Aristotle describes her laying twelve; in forests where
they breed naturally they are very numerous; this
bird lives about twenty years, and not till the third year
has that beautiful variegated plumage of its tail; in the
kingdom of Cambaya, says Taverner, near the city
of Baroch, whole flocks of them are in the field; de-
scription of their habits; decoy made use of to catch
them there, 523 to 530
Pelican-a ruminating bird; a native of Africa and
America; its description; their flesh rancid, and tastes
worse than it smells; use made by the Americans
of their pouches; is not entirely incapable of instruc-
tion in a domestic state; instances of it; Aldrovandus
mentions one believed to be fifty years old, 616 to 619.
Penguin a heavy water-fowl; the wings of this tribe
unfit for flight, and their legs still more awkwardly
adapted for walking; they dive to the bottom, or swim
between two waters; they never visit land but when
coming to breed; their colour; are covered more warmly
with feathers than other birds; description of the
Magellanic penguin; they unite in them the qualities
of men, fowls, and fishes; instances of its gluttonous
appetite; their food and flesh; are a bird of society,
628 to 630.
Penpark-hole-in Gloucestershire; its description, 21.
Pheasants at first propagated among us, brought
from the banks of the Phasis, a river of Calchis, in Asia
Minor, whence they still retain their name; description
of this beautiful bird; wild among us, is an envied
ornament of our parks and forests, where he feeds upon
acorns and berries; in the woods the hen pheasant lays
from eighteen to twenty eggs in a season; but in a do-
mestic state seldom above ten; it is better left at large
in the woods than reduce to its pristine captivity; its
fecundity when wild is sufficient to stock the forest, and
its flesh acquires the highest flavour from its unlimited
freedom; many varieties of pheasants; of all others, the
golden pheasant of China the most beautiful 532 to 534.
Pie-no class of birds so ingenuous, active, and well-
fitted for society; they live in pairs, and their attach
ments are confined to each other; they build nests in
trees or bushes; the male shares in the labour of build-
ing, and relieves his mate in the duties of incubation; and
the young once excluded, both are equally active in
making them ample provision; general laws prevail,
and a republican form of government is established
among them; they watch for the general safety of every
bird of the grove; they are remarkable for instinct and
capacity for instruction; instances of it; the few general
characters in which they all agree, 541, 542.
Pigeons are ruminating birds; those that live in a
wild state by no means so fruitful as those in our pigeon-
houses nearer home; the tame pigeon and all its beauti-
ful varieties owe their origin to one species-the stock
dove; various names of tame pigeous; attempts made
to render domestic the ring dove, but hitherto fruitless;
the turtle-dove a bird of passage; pigeons of the dove-
house not so faithful as the turtle-dove; near fifteen
thousand pigeons may in four years be produced from a
single pair; the stock-dove seldom breeds above twice a
year; have a stronger attachment to their young than
those who breed so often; the pigeons called carriers
used to convey letters, not trained with as much care as
formerly, when sent from a besieged city to those coming
to relieve it; in an hour and a half they perform a
journey of forty miles, 561 to 564.
Plague-not well known whence it has its beginning;
is propagated by infection; some countries, even in the
midst of Africa, never infected with it; others generally
visited by it once a year, as Egypt; not known in
Nigritia; Numidia it molests not once in a hundred
years; plague spread over the world in 1346, after two
years travelling from the great kingdom of Cathay, north
of China, to Europe; the plague desolated the city
of London in 1665; for this last age, it has abated its
violence, even in those countries where most common,
and why; a plague affected trees and stones, 101, 102.
Pole-cat-a distinct species from the ermine; resembles
the ferret so much, that some have thought it the same
animal; there are many distinctions between them;
description of the pole cat, very destructive to young
game; the rabbit its favourite prey; one pole-cat destroys
a whole warren by a wound hardly perceptible; gene-
rally reside in woods or thick brakes, making holes two
yards deep under ground; female brings forrh in sum-
mer five or six young at a time, and supplies the want
of milk with the blood of such animals as she can seize;
an inhabitant of temperate climates, being afraid of cold
as well as heat; the species confined in Europe to a
range from Poland to Italy; pole-cat of America and
Viginia are names for the squash and the skink; dis-
tinctions of these animals; seizes the flying squirrel,
357 to 360.
Polypus-very voracious; its description; uses its
arms as a fisherman his net; is not of the vegetable
tribe, but a real animal; it hunts for its food, and pos-
sesses a power of choosing it or retreating from danger;
dimensions of the sea-polypus, and of that which grows
in fresh waters; the power of dissection first tried upon
these animals to multiply their numbers; their way
of living; arms serve them as lime-twigs do a fowler;
how it seizes upon its prey; some propagated from eggs;
some produced by buds issuing from the body, as plants
by inoculation; while all may be multiplied by cuttings
to an amazing degree of minuteness; of those produced
like buds from the parent stem, should the parent
swallow a red worm it gives a tincture to all its fluids,
and the young partakes of the parental colour; but
if the latter should seize upon the same prey, the parent
is no way benefited by the capture, all the advantage
thus remains with the young; several young of different
sizes are growing from its body; some just budding
forth, others acquiring perfect form, and others ready
to drop from the original stem; those young, still attached
to the parent, bud and propagate also, each holding
dependence upon its parent; artificial method of propa-
gating these animals by cuttings, 886 to 890.
Porcupine-its description; of all those brought into
Europe not one ever seen to launch its quills, though
sufficiently provoked; their manner of defence; directs
its quills pointing to the enemy; feeds on serpents and
other reptiles; porcupine of Canada subsists on vege-
tables; those brought to this country for show usually
feed on bread, milk, and fruits; do not refuse meat when
offered; is extremely hurtful to gardens; time of their
gestation; the female brings forth one at a time; she
suckles it about a month, and accustoms it to live like
herself upon vegetables and the bark of trees; manner
of escaping when hunted by a dog or a wolf; description
of one kept in an iron cage; the porcupine of America
differs much from that of the ancient continent; two
kinds; the couando and the urson; description of both,
401 to 404.
Porpoise a fish less than a grampus, with the snout
of a hog; its description and habits; possess, proportion-
ably to their bulk, the manners of whales; places where
they seek for prey; manner of killing them in the
Thames; yield a large quantity of oil; the lean of some
not old said to be as well tasted as veal; caviare pre-
pared from the eggs of this fish, 668 to 670.
Poultry-general characteristics of the poultry kind;
nearly all domestic birds of this kind maintained in our
yards are of a foreign extraction; the courtship of this
kind is short, and the congress fortuitous; the male
takes no heed of his offspring; though timerous with
birds of prey, he is incredibly bold among his own kind;
the sight of a male of his own species produces a combat;
the female takes all the labour of hatching and bringing
up her young, choosing a place remote from the cock,
523, 524.
Prickly-finned fishes-described, 692 to 694.
QUADRUPEDS-they bear the nearest resemblance to
man; the weaker races exert all efforts to avoid their
invaders; next to human influence, the climate seems
to have the strongest effects upon their nature and form;
both at the line and the pole the wild are fierce and un-
tameable; America inferior to us in these productions;
opinion that all in South America are a different species
from those most resembling them in the old world; such
as peculiarly belong to the new continent are without
any marks of the perfection of their species; the large
and formidable produce but one young at a time, while
the mean and contemptible are prolific; those that
ruminate are harmless and easily tamed; they are chiefly
the cow, the sheep, and the deer kind; the largest are
found in the torrid zone, and these are all fond of the
water; the chevrotin, or little Guinea-deer, the least
of all cloven-footed animals, and perhaps the most
beautiful; its description; none can be more beautiful
than the tiger; change of colour in the hair obtains in
them all to a degree plainly observable; the carnivorous
have not milk in plenty; are not fond of engaging each
other; general description of amphibious quadrupeds,
Quail--a bird of passage; description of it, 540
to 541.
RABBIT-a ruminating animal; rabbit and hare dis-
tinct kinds; a creature covered with feathers and hair,
said to be bred between a rabbit and a hen; breed seven
times a year, and bring eight young each time; various
colours of rabbits; the mouse-colour kinds originally
from an island in the river Humber; still continuing
their general colour after a number of successive gene
rations; account of their production; the rabbit gene-
rally fatter, and lives longer than the hare; native
of the warmer climates; it has been imported into
England from Spain; in some of the islands in the
Mediterranean they multiplied in such numbers, that
military aid was demanded to destroy them; love a warm
climate, 374 to 376.
Racoon-with some the Jamaica rat; its description
and habits; do more injury in one night in Jamaica
than the labours of a month can repair; capable of being
instructed in amusing tricks; drinks by lapping as well
as by sucking; its food, 469, 470.
Rats, musk-three distinctions of that species-the
ondatra, desman, and pilori; in what they resemble
each other; the savages of Canada think the musk-rat
intloerably fœtid, but deem its flesh good eating; great
rat, called also rat of Norway, though unknown in all
northern countries; originally from the Levant, and a
new comer into this country: first arrivals upon the
coasts of Ireland; with ships trading in provisions to
Gibraltar; a single pair enough for the numerous pro-
geny now infesting the British empire; the feeble animals
do not escape the rapacity of the Norway rat; except
the mouse, they eat and destroy each other; produce
from fifteen to thirty at a time, and bring forth three
times a year, 388 to 396.
Rattle-snake-kind of friendship between it and the
armadilla, or tatou, frequently found in the same hole;
its description and dimensions; effects of its bite; the
remedies against it; power of charming its prey into its
mouth; facts related to this purpose, 787, 788.
Ravens-how distinguished from the carrion-crow and
the rook; manners and appetites; ravens found in
every region of the world; amusing qualities, vices, and
defects; food in the wild state; places for buiding nests;
number of eggs; will not permit their young to keep in
the same district, but drive them off when sufficiently
able to shift for themselves; some have lived near a
hundred years; the horned Indian raven, 542 to 546.
Ray-figure of the fish of this kind, and their differ-
ences; amazing dimensions of one speared by Negroes
at Guadaloupe; to credit the Norway bishop, there are
some above a mile over: supposed to be the largest in-
habitant of the deep; three hundred eggs taken out
of the body of a ray; in what manner the eggs drop into
the womb from the ovary, or egg-bag, 676 to 682.
Rhinoceros-a ruminating animal; not afraid singly
to oppose the lion; next to the elephant the most power-
ful of animals; general outline of it; the elephant
defeated by it; its horn sometimes found from three feet
to three feet and a half long; this horn composed of the
most solid substance, and pointed so as to inflict the
most fatal wounds; a rhinoceros sent from Bengal to
London, not above two years old, cost near £1,000 for
his conveyance and food; in some parts of Asia these
animals are tamed, and led into the field to strike terror
into the enemy, but are as dangerous to the employers;
method of taking them; some found in Africa with a
double horn, one above the other, 456, 457.
Rivers--all our greatest find their source among
mountains; their production, according to De la Hire;
other hypothesis upon the same subject; make their
own beds, and level the bottom of their channels; their
sinuosities and turnings more numerous as they proceed;
a certain sign with the savages of North America they
are near the sea, when they find the rivers winding and
often changing their direction; a little river received
into a larger without augmenting either width or depin,
and why; instance of it; a river tending to enter
another either perpendicularly or in an opposite direc
tion will be diverted by degrees from that direction, and
obliged to make itself a more favourable entrance with
the stream of the former; whatever direction the ridge
of the mountain has the river takes the opposite course;
every great river, whose source lies within the tropics,
has its stated inundations; those of countries least in-
habited are very rocky and broken into cataracts, and
why; at the poles necessarily small, and why; the
rivers of Europe more navigable and more manageable
than those of Africa and of the torrid zone; all rivers in
the world flowing into the sea, with a continuance
of their present stores, would take up at a rude compu-
tation 800 years to fill it to its present height, 60 to 69.
Ruminant quadrupeds-birds, fishes, insects; men
known to ruminate; instance in a young man at Bristol;
those of the cow kind hold the first rank; all of this
class internally much alike; have not the upper fore-
teeth; the stag performs this with more difficulty than
the cow or sheep, 246 to 369.
SABLE its description, from Mr. Jonelin, the first
accurate observer of this animal; sables leap with ease
from tree to tree, and are afraid of the sun; different
colours of their fur; hunting the sable chiefly the lot
of soldiers and condemned criminals; how directed to
shoot them, 360, 361.
Salamander-there is no such animal existing as that
described by the ancients; the modern salamander a
lizard; its conformation and habits; reports concerning
their venom: idle notions of its being inconsumable in
fire, 765 to 768.
Savages more difficult in point of dress than the
fashionable or tawdry European; instances of it; per-
form a journey of twelve hundred leagues in less than
six weeks; oblige their women to a life of continual
labour; are surprised an European walks forward for
his amusement and returns back again, 154, &c.
Scolopendra-the centipes, a hideous angry worm,
814, 815.
Scorpion-four principal parts distinguishable in this
animal; the reservoir where its poison is kept; effect
of its sting upon a dog, in an experiment made by M.
Maupertuis; experiments made upon other dogs; in-
stances of its irascible nature and malignity; when
driven to extremity destroys itself; instance of it;
captivity makes it destroy its young; a scorpion of Ame-
rica produced from the egg, 811 to 814.
Sea-was open to all till the time of the Emperor
Justinian; sensibly retired in many parts of the coasts
of France, England, Holland, Germany, and Prussia;
Norwegian Sea has formed several little islands from the
main land, and still daily advances upon the continent;
its colour not from anything floating in it, but from the
different reflections of the rays of light; a proof of it;
the sea grows colder in proportion as divers descend;
smokes like an oven near the poles when the winter
begins; no fish imbibe any of the sea saltness with food
or in respiration, 83 to 92.
Seal-its description; the varieties innumerable; the
brain largest of any animal; the foramen ovale in its
heart never closing, fits it for continuing under water;
the water its habitation; seldom at a distance from the
shore; found in the North and ley seas, and on those
shores in flocks; gregarious and migrant; direct their
course to northern coasts, and seas free of ice, in two
departures, observing time and track; how and by what
passages they return unknown; females in our climates
bring forth in winter; where they rear their young;
hunt and herd together, and have a variety of tones like
dogs and cats, to pursue prey or warn of danger; how
the Europeans and Greenlanders destroy them; in our
climate they are wary, and suffer no approach; never
sleep without moving, and seldom more than a minute;
taken for the skin and oil the fat yields; the flesh
formerly at the tables of the great; an instance of it,
Serpents-the sea about the islands of Azores re-
plenished with them for want of motion; the various
hissings at the close of the evening make a louder
symphony in Africa than birds in European groves in a
morning; to believe all said of the sea-serpent is cre-
dulity, to refuse assent to its existence is presumption;
sea-serpent, the clops described; marks distinguishing
them from animals, their conformation; progressive
motion; the only auimal in the forest that opposes the
monkey; entwines and devours the buffalo; no animal
bears abstinence so long as they; little serpents live for
several years in glasses, never eat at all, or stain the
glass with excrements; little serpent at the Cape
of Good Hope, and north of the river Senegal; long
serpent of Congo; some bring forth their young alive,
some bring forth eggs; some venomous, and some in-
offensive; animals which destroy them; boasted pre-
tensions of charming serpents; all amphibious; their
motion, swimming in liquids; the Esculapian serpent;
seat of poison in venomous serpents; instrument by
which the wound is made; those destitute of fangs are
harmless; various appearances the venom produces;
may be taken inwardly without sensible effects or pre-
judice to the constitution; their principal food birds,
moles, toads, lizards; the prince of serpents, a native
of Japan, the greatest favourite of savages, 771 to 794.
Shammoy-see chamois.
Shark-description of the great white shark; no fish
swims so fast; outstrips the swiftest ships; instances
of frightful rapacity in this fish; its enemity to man;
usual method of sailors to take them; no animal harder
to kill; how killed by the African Negroes; the remora,
or sucking-fish sticks to it; for what purpose; brings
forth living young; Rondeletius says the female of the
blue shark lets her brood, when in danger, swim down
her throat, and shelter in her belly, 672 to 675.
Sheep the author saw one that would eat flesh;
proper care taken of the animal produces favourable
alterations in the fleeces here and in Syria; in course
of time impoverish the pasturage; in the domestic state
stupid, most defenceless and inoffensive; those without
horns more dull and heavy than the rest; those with
longest and finest fleeces more subject to disorders; the
goat, resembling them in many respects, much their
superior; they propagate together, as of one family;
distinguished from deer; do not appear from old writers
to have been bred in early times in Britain; no country
produces such sheep as England, larger fleeces, or better
for clothing; sheep without horns the best sort; the
sheep in its noblest state is in the African desert, or the
extensive plains of Siberia; sheep in the savage state;
the woolly sheep is only in Europe, and in the temperate
provinces of Asia; subsists in cold countries, but not a
natural inhabitant of them; the Iceland sheep have
four, and sometimes eight horns; with broad tails,
common in Tartary, Arabia, Persia, Barbary, Syria, and
Egypt; the tail often weighs from twenty to thirty
pounds; those called strepsicheros, a native of the Archi-
pelago; Guinea sheep described; bring forth one or two
at a time, sometimes three or four; bear their young
five months; the intestines_thirty times the length
of their body; in Syria and Persia remarkable for fine
gloss, length, and softness of hair, 257 to 262.
Shell-fish-described, 707 to 723.
Silkworm-the most serviceable of all such creatures;
its real history unknown among the Romans to the time
of Justinian, and supposed only brought into Europe
in the twelfth century; two methods of breeding them;
Pausanias's description of this worm; changes its skip
in three weeks or a month; gummy fluids forming the
threads; preparations made before spinning the web;
the cone or ball of silk described; effort to burst the cone,
free from confinement, it neither flies nor eats; few
of these animals suffered to come to a state of maturity,
and why, 848 to 851.
Sleep with some of the lower animals takes up the
greatest part of their lives; man the only creature re-
quiring sleep from double motives, for the refreshment
of the mental and of the bodily frame; want of it pro-
duces madness; procured to man with more difficulty
than to other animals; in what manner sleep fetters us
for hours together, according to Rohault. bodily labour
demands a less quantity of it than mental; the famous
Philip Barretier slept twelve hours in the twenty-four;
numberless instances of persons who, asleep, performed
many ordinary duties of their calling, and, with ridiculous
industry, completed by night what they failed doing
by day; remarkable instance related in the German
Ephemerides, 162 to 169.
Sloth-two different kinds of that animal, the air and
the unan; both seem the meanest and most ill-formed
of all animals that chew the cud; formed by nature to
climb; they get up a tree with pain, but are utterly unable
to descend; drop from the branches to the ground;
strip a tree of its verdure in less than a fortnight, after-
wards devour the bark, and in a short time kill what
might prove their support; every step taken sends forth
a plaintive melancholy cry; like birds, have but one
vent for propagation, excrement, and urine; their looks
piteous, to move compassion, accompanied with tears,
that dissuade injuring so wretched a being; one fastened
by its feet to a pole, suspended across two beams, re-
mained forty days without meat, drink, or sleep; an
amazing instance of strength in the feet instanced, 472
to 474.
Smelling-Brahmins of India have a power of smell-
ing equal to what is in other creatures; can smell the
water they drink, to us quite inodorous; Negroes of the
Antilles by smell distinguish the footsteps of a French-
man from those of a Negro; gives often false intelligence;
natives of different countries, or different natives of the
same, differ widely in that sense; instances of it; mix-
tures of bodies void of odour produce powerful smells;
a slight cold blunts all smelling; smallest changes in
man make great alterations in this sense; delicacy
of smelling in birds instanced in ducks, 179 to 184.
Snail, garden-is surprisingly fitted for the life it is
to live; organs of life it possesses in common with
animals, and what peculiar to itself; every snail at once
male and female, and while it impregnates another is im-
pregnated in turn; coupling of these animals; possessed
of the power of mending the shell; come to full growth,
they cannot make a new one; Swammerdam's experi-
ment to this purpose; salt destroys them, so does soot;
continue in a torpid state during the severity of winter;
so great their multiplication in some years, that gardeners
imagine they burst from the earth: wet seasons favour-
able to their production; common garden-snail compared
with the fresh-water snail and sea-suail; fresh-water
snail brings forth young alive, with shells upon their
backs; at all times of the year fresh-water snails opened
are pregnant with eggs, or with living snails, or with
both together; sea snails found viviparous, others lay
eggs; manner in which the sea-snails impregnate each
other; different orifices or verges of snails; the differ-
ence between land and sea-snails; of the trochus kind,
have no mouth; their trunk; are among snails as the
tiger, the eagle, or the shark among beasts, birds, and
fishes; food of all sea snails lies at the bottom; of sea-
snails, that most frequently swimming upon the surface,
whose shell is thinnest and most easily pierced, is the
nautilus; its description; peculiarity by which the
nautilus is most distinguished; the sea-snail; a carti-
laginous fish, described, 729 to 736.
Soft-finned fishes-described, 696.
Sparrows-house-sparrow; various birds of the sparrow
kind; their food; songsters of this class; their migra-
tion, 564 to 571.
Spiders in South America and Africa as large as
sparrows; the spider for several months together sub-
sists upon a single meal; chief of our native spiders;
not venomous; Martinico spider's body as large as a
hen's egg; manner of making their webs; Lister has
distinguished the sexes of this animal; experiment made
by Mr. Reaumur to turn their labours to the advantage
of man, 798 to 804.
Spinous-class of fishes already extended to four hun-
dred sorts; Gouan's system and arrangement of the
various sorts of spinous fishes; their general leading
marks and difference from others, 690, 692-696 to 707.
Sponges opinion of Count Marfigli and others about
them, 890 to 892.
Spoonbill-descriptions of the European and Ame-
rican spoonbill, 604, 605.
Squirrel-a ruminating animal; classed as such by
Pyerius; the kind has as many varieties as any wild
animal; enumeration of some; its way of moving is by
bounds; few animals so tender, or so unfit for a change
of abode; some live on the tops of trees, others feed on
vegetables below, where also they take shelter in storms;
description of its qualities, food, and mansion; the
martin destroys the squirrel, then takes possession of its
mansion, 376 to 380.
Stag-first in rank among quadrupeds; its elegant
form described; no obvious difference between the in-
ternal structure of the stag and the bull but to a nice
observer; ruminates not so easily as the cow or sheep,
reason why; manner of knowing its age; differs in size
and horns from a fallow-deer; seldom drinks in winter,
and less in spring; different colours of stags; of animals,
natives of this climate, none such a beautiful eye as the
stag; horns increase in thickness and height from the
second year of age to the eighth; grow differently in
stags from sheep and cows; horns resembled to a vege
table substance, grafted upon the head of the stag; time
of feeling impressions of rut, or desire of copulation;
effects the rut causes; stag lives about forty years;
voice in the time of rut terrible, and then keeps dogs
off intrepidly; a stag and tiger enclosed in the same
area, the stag's defence so bold, the tiger was obliged to
fly; the stag in rut ventures out to sea from one island
to another, and swims best when fattest; the hind, or
female, uses all her arts to conceal her young from him,
the most dangerous of her pursuers; stag remaining
wild in England, called red-deer, found on moors border-
ing on Cornwall and Devonshire; different names given
them according to their ages; terms used by hunters
pursuing the stag, 275 to 284.
Star-fish-general description of the tribe; are also
called sea-nettles; cut in pieces, every part survives the
operation, becoming a perfect animal, endued with its
natural rapacity, 884 to 886.
Stinkard-name given by our sailors to one or two
animals of the weasel kind, chiefly found in America,
and by the savages of Canada to the musk-rat, 362
to 364.
Stork-a ruminating bird; true difference between it
and the crane; are birds of passage; returning into
Europe in March; the Dutch attentive to the preserva-
tion of the stork in their republic, the bird protected
by the laws and the prejudices of the people; countries
where found; ancient Egytian's regard for ibis bird car-
ried to adoration; the ancient his supposed the same
which at present bears the same name, 596, 597.
Sturgeon a cartilaginous fish of a considerable size,
yet flies terrified from the smallest fishes; its descrip-
tion; three kinds of it; the largest caught in Great
Britain taken in the Eske, where frequently found
weighing four hundred and fifty pounds; live in society
among themselves; and Gesner has seen them shcal
together at the notes of a trumpet; in the water it is
one of the strongest fishes, and often breaks the nets that
enclose it, but its head once raised above water, its
activity ceases; two methods of preparing it; that from
America not so good as from the north of Europe;
caviare made with the roe of all kinds of sturgeon;
manner of making it, 684 to 687.
Sunk Island, 41.
Swallows-time of their migrations; departure of
some, and retreat of others into old walls, from the
inclemencies of winter, wrap the migrations of birds in
great obscurity; experiment of Mr. Buffon to this pur-
pose; with us birds of passage, breed in upper Egypt
and the land of Java, and never disappear; house-
swallow; characteristics of the swallow tribe; at the
end of September they depart; those migrating first
seen in Africa, in the beginning of October, having per-
formed their journey in seven days; sometimes seen,
interrupted by contrary winds, wavering in their course
at sea, and lighting upon the ships in their passage;
a doubt whether all swallows thus migrate, or some
other of this species externally alike and internally
different, be differently affected by the approach of win-
ter; observations made to this purpose by Reaumur,
Frisch, aud Klein; Chinese pluck them from rocks, and
send great numbers into the East Indies for sale;
gluttons esteem them great delicacies dissolved in chicken
or mutton broth; the number of their eggs, 585 to 588.
Swan-a stately web-footed water fowl; doubt whether
the tame kind be in a state of nature; none found in
Europe; the wild swan, though strongly resembling it
in colour and form, yet another bird; difference between
wild and tame swans; the tame most silent, the wild
has a loud and disagreeable note; from thence called
the hooper; accounts sufficient to suspend an opinion
of its musical abilities; two months hatching, and a
year growing to proper size; longest in the shell of any
bird; said to live three hundred years; by an act
of Edward IV. the son of the king was allowed to keep
a swan, and no others, unless possessed of five marks a
year; punishment for taking their eggs, imprisonment
for a year and a day, and a fine at the king's will; places
which abound with them, 635 to 637.
TAPIR the largest animal of America, not comparable
to the elephant in size of Africa; considered as the
hippopotamos of the new continent, 469.
Taste-in all substances on mountain tops and valley
bottoms; to determine somewhat upon the nature
of tastes, bodies to be tasted must be moistened or dis-
solved by saliva to produce a sensation, the tongue and
body to be tasted being dry, no taste ensues; relish
of tastes stronger in children than in persons advanced
in life, 179 to 184.
Thrush a slender-billed bird of the sparrow kind;
its song; 571 to 577.
Tides-with Pliny, were influenced partly by the sun,
and in a greater degree by the moon; Kepler first con-
jectured attraction the principal cause of them; the
precise manner discovered by Newton; high tides happen
at the same time on opposite sides of the globe, where
waters are farthest from the moon; solar and lunar
tides; greatest in syzigies, least in quadratures; flows
strongest in narrowest places; Mediterranean, Baltic,
and Black Sea, no sensible tides, the gulf of Venice
excepted, and why; higher in the torrid zone than in
the ocean; greatest at the river Indus, rising thirty feet;
remarkably high on the coasts of Malay, in the straits
of Sunda, the Red Sea, the gulf of St. Lawrence; along
the coasts of China and Japan, at Panama, and in the
gulf of Bengal; those at Tonquin most remarkable in
the world-one tide and one ebb in twenty-four hours;
twice in each month no tide at all; in the straits of
Magellan it rises twenty feet, flows six hours, and the
ebb lasts but two hours, 76 to 82.
Tiger-leaps twenty feet at a spring; defeated by a
stag; taught to defend herds; attacks the lion; often
bigger than the lion; nothing tames it; perfectly re-
sembles the cat; three sorts in Sundah Rajah's domi-
nions; the royal tiger; carries a buffalo over its shoulder
to its den; said to follow the rhinoceros for its excre-
ments; other tales about it; under Augustus, a tiger an
extraordinary sight; the species scarce; opinion of Varo,
that it was never taken alive; the ancients commended
it for beauty among quadrupeds, equal to that of the
peacock among birds; supposed to bring forth four or
five young at a time; expresses his resentment as the
lion; the skin esteemed in the east, particularly in
China; battle of one tiger and three elephants at Siam
described; another between a crocodile; the red tiger,
Mr. Buffon's cougar; common in Guinea, Brazil, Para-
guai, and other parts of South America; the flesh
superior to mutton, and esteemed by the Negroes as a
dainty, 317 to 322.
Tipula-long-legged gnat; description, 878 to 880.
Toad-some bigger than ducks; their flesh as a delicacy
on the coast of Guinea; differences between the frog
and it as to figure and conformation; their nature,
appetites, and food; coupling; difficulty in bringing
forth; curious particulars relating to this animal; one
swallowing a bee alive, the stomach stung, and the in-
sect vomited up again; toads not venomous; accounts
of toads taken inwardly; difficult to be killed; lives for
centuries in a rock, or within an oak, without access,
nourishment, or air, and yet found alive and perfect;
accounts of this; toads suck cancerous breasts, and per-
form a cure; progress of this operation; the rubeth, the
land-toad, alone has the property of sucking; doubtful
whether they die by internal or external application
of the cancerous matter; description of the Surinam
toad, called pipal, 751 to 757.
Tornado-a formidable tempest, so called by the
Spaniards, 111, 112.
Torpedo its description; by an unaccountable power,
the instant touched, even with a stick, when immediately
taken out of the sea, it numbs the hand and the arm, or
whole body; the shock resembles an electric stroke-
sudden, tingling, and painful; accounts by Kempfer
of numbness produced by it; he believes holding in the
breath prevents the violence; implicit belief of efficacy
would be painfully undeceived; this power not exerted
upon every occasion; trials by Reaumur to this pur-
pose; opinions concerning the cause of this strange
effect; the fish dead, the power destroyed, then handled
or eaten with security; the power not extended to the
degree some believe-reaching fishermen at the end
of a line, or numbing fishes in the same pond; ridiculous
excess of this numbing quality in the history of Abys-
sinia by Godignus; Lorenzini, from experiments, is
convinced the power resides in two thin muscles of the
back; several fishes have acquired the name of tor-
pedo possessed of the same quality; Moore's and Con-
damine's accounts of them, 680 to 682.
Tortoise-ranked among crustaceous fishes, though
superior to them all; amphibious, according to Seba,
distinguished in two classes, the land-tortoise and the
sea-turtle; differ more in habits than conformation;
description; principal distinctions; varieties; all gene-
rally found in warm countries, without retiring; the
shell never changes, and, growing with the body, is
formed in pieces; a defence against dangerous attacks;
the blood warm and red; how circulated; turtle larger
than tortoise; weighs from fifty to five hundred pounds;
ancients speak of some of amazing sizes; live to 80 and
120 years; can live without limbs, head, or brain, proved
by experiments of Rhedi; moves with great weight upon
it; hears distinctly by means of an auditory conduit
opening into the mouth; sighs when ill situated, and
sheds tears when distressed; torpid during winter, sleep-
ing in some cave, and breathing imperceptibly; account
of a land-tortoise caught in a canal at Amsterdam, and
of a turtle in the Loire, in 1729; the food chiefly vege-
tables, though believed to eat insects, snails, and bugs,
715 to 723.
Turkey-bird of the poultry kind; its native country
disputed; arguments for the old and new continent;
first seen in France in the reign of Francis I., and in
England in the reign of Henry VIII.; its tenderness
with us, when young, argues not for our climate; in the
wild state, hardy and numerous in the snowy forests
of Canada; also larger and more beautiful than in the
domestic state; the savages weave the feathers into
cloaks, and fashion them into fans and umbrellas; hunt-
ing the turkey a principal diversion with them, its flesh
chiefly supporting their families; manner of hunting,
530 to 532.
Turtle-prepares for laying, and deposits her eggs in
the sand, where in twenty-six days they are hatched by
the sun; lay from 150 to 200 in a season; the young
from the egg, with their shell, seek their food untaught,
and at the size of quails, run by instinct into the sea,
ignorant of all danger; propagated on shore only;
comes from sea. on purpose in coupling season; female
is passive and reluctant; the male is slow, but grasps
so fast nothing can loose the hold, 719 to 723.
Tusks-those of a boar sometimes a foot long; of the
babyrouessa a fine ivory, smoother and whiter than the
elephant's, but not so hard; of enormous size; those of a
boar broken abate his fierceness and venery, producing
nearly the same effect as castration; of the mammoth
weigh four hundred pounds; those of the elephant from
Africa, two hundred and fifty; some remarkable lately
found near the Ohio and Miume, in America; Dr.
Hunter thinks them of a larger animal than the elephant;
of the narwhale, or sea-unicorn, a cetaceous fish with
teeth, from nine to fourteen feet long, 305, &c.
|