United States or Egypt ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Swainson the suctorial, from a very generally prevalent peculiarity, that of drawing sustenance by suction. The rasorial type comprehends most of the animals which become domesticated and useful to man, as, first, the fowls which give a name to the type, the ungulata, and more particularly the ruminantia, among quadrupeds, and the dog among the ferae.
Sub-typical Ferae . . . Claws retractile; carnivorous. Natatorial Cetacea. . Pre-eminently aquatic; feet very short. Suctorial Glires . . Muzzle lengthened and pointed. Rasorial Ungulata . Crests and other processes on the head. He then takes the quadrumana, and places it in the following arrangement:
Now, amongst individuals, some appear to be almost exclusively of the sub- typical, and others of the rasorial characters, while to a limited number is given the finely assorted assemblage of qualities which places them on a parallel with the typical.
Swainson calls them typical, sub-typical, natatorial, suctorial, and rasorial. Some of his illustrations of the principle are exceedingly interesting. He shews that the leading animal of a typical circle usually has a combination of properties concentrated in itself, without any of these preponderating remarkably over others.
At higher points in the scale, the sphere of existence is considerably extended, and the mental operations are less definite accordingly. The horse, dog, and a few other rasorial types, noted for their serviceableness to our race, have the indefinite powers in no small endowment.
Here I may advert to a very interesting analogy between the mental characters of the types in the quinary system of zoology and the characters of individual men. We have seen that the pre-eminent type is usually endowed with an harmonious assemblage of the mental qualities belonging to the whole group, while the sub-typical inclines to ferocity, the rasorial to gentleness, and so on.
If an animal, for example, is the suctorial member of a circle of species, forming the natatorial type of genera, forming a family or sub-family which in its turn is rasorial, its qualities must evidently be greatly mingled and ill to define.
In canis, for instance, the bull-dog and mastiff represent the ferocious sub-typical group; the waterdog is natatorial; we see the speed and length of muzzle of the suctorial group in the greyhound; and the bushy tail and gentle and serviceable character of the rasorial in the shepherd's dog and spaniel.
And for this idea there is, even in the present imperfect state of our knowledge of animated nature, some countenance in ascertained facts, the birds of Australia, for example, being chiefly of the suctorial type, while it may be presumed that the observation as to the predominance of the useful animals in the Old World, is not much different from saying that the rasorial type is there peculiarly abundant.
Gentleness, familiarity with man, and a peculiar approach to human intelligence, are the leading mental characteristics of animals of this type. In the animal kingdom, the mollusca are the rasorial type, which, however, only shews itself there in their soft and sluggish character, and their being very generally edible.
Word Of The Day