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French naturalists report, that before an oyster is qualified to appear in Paris, he must undergo a course of education in discretion; for the artificial oyster-beds on the French coast, where the animals are stored to be carried away as required, are constructed between tide-marks; and their denizens, accustomed to pass the greater part of the twenty-four hours beneath the water, open their valves and gape when so situated, but close them firmly when they are exposed by the recession of the tide.
But the arts by which these new men of science contrived to evade the ignorance and the despotic limitations of their time, the inventions with which they worked to such good purpose upon their own time, in spite of its restrictions and oppositions, and which enable them to 'outstretch their span, and prolong and perpetuate their plan for the advancement of their kind, and compel the future ages to work with them to the fulfilment of its ends; the arts by which these great original naturalists undertook to transfer in all their unimpaired splendour and worth, the collections they had made in the nobler fields of their science to the ages that would be able to make use of them; these are the arts that we shall have need to master, if we would unlock the legacy they have left to us.
Even if it be granted that the difference between man and his nearest allies is as great in corporeal structure as some naturalists maintain, and although we must grant that the difference between them is immense in mental power, yet the facts given in the earlier chapters appear to declare, in the plainest manner, that man is descended from some lower form, notwithstanding that connecting-links have not hitherto been discovered.
But how could the solitary country-dwelling philosopher appreciate at their full value discoveries which naturalists themselves at that time in part contested and partly did not understand how to avail themselves of sufficiently?
But it is pretended by naturalists, that there are certain primitive mountains in the earth, bodies which have had another origin than that of the general strata of the globe and subsequent masses; an origin, therefore, which cannot be considered as having been produced from natural operations, or as effected in the course of known causes.
The talipot palm is very marked in its nature, and is specially interesting to naturalists; fine specimens are to be seen all over the island.
Far be it from me to convey the idea that life in those latitudes is Eden. The mosquitos and other insects almost drive one mad. The country may truly be called a naturalists' paradise, for butterflies, beetles, and creeping things are multitudinous, but the climate, with its damp, sickly heat, is wholly unsuited to the Anglo-Saxon.
When I find a dead starling on the downs ranged over by sparrowhawks, it is almost always a young bird a "brown thrush" as it used to be called by the old naturalists. You may know that the slayer was a sparrowhawk by the appearance of the bird, its body untouched, but the flesh picked neatly from the neck and the head gone. That was swallowed whole, after the beak had been cut off.
The causes of these periodical winds have been investigated by several able naturalists, whose systems, however, do not entirely correspond either in the principles laid down or in their application to the effects known to be produced in different parts of the globe.
He has given rise to many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species. His body is constructed on the same homological plan as that of other mammals. He passes through the same phases of embryological development. He retains many rudimentary and useless structures, which no doubt were once serviceable.
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