Curious Creatures in Zoology by John Ashton.pdf

(3666 KB) Pobierz
Curious Creatures
in
Zoology
by
John Ashton
Arment Biological Press
This Electronic Publication is a reprint of John Ashton’s Curious Creatures in Zoology.
This edition was originally published by Cassell Publishing in New York. The New York
edition does not show a copyright date, but the London edition was published in 1890. The
current publisher has attempted to retain all pertinent text and figures, but format changes
were necessary. Because pagination has changed, text references will not necessarily refer to
specific pages in this electronic document. Internal links have been created for the Table
of Contents and the Index. If you are viewing this document with Adobe Acrobat Reader®,
just click on the links.
This electronic reprint is ©2000 by Arment Biological Press.
The original text is in the public domain, however all changes, formatting and presentation
of thispublication are copyrighted by the current publisher.
ISBN 1-930585-05-5
Arment Biological Press
Landisville, PA
www.herper.com/ebooks/
Preface
“TRAVELLERS see strange things,” more especially when their writing about, or
delineation of, them is not put under the microscope of modern scientific examination.
Our ancestors were content with what was given them, and being, as a rule, a stay-at-
home race, they could not confute the stories they read in books. That age of faith
must have had its comforts, for no man could deny the truth of what he was told. But
now that modern travel has subdued the globe, and inquisitive strangers have poked
their noses into every portion of the world, “the old order changeth, giving place to
new,” and, gradually, the old stories are forgotten.
It is to rescue some of them from the oblivion into which they were fast falling, that
I have written, or compiled, this book. I say compiled it, for I am fonder of letting old
authors tell their stories in their old-fashioned language, than to paraphrase it, and
usurp the credit of their writings, as is too much the mode now-a-days.
It is not given to every one to be able to consult the old Naturalists; and, besides,
most of them are written in Latin, and to read them through is partly unprofitable
work, as they copy so largely one from another. But, for the general reader, selections
can be made, and, if assisted by accurate reproductions of the very quaint wood
engravings, a book may be produced which, I venture to think, will not prove tiring,
even to a superficial reader. Perhaps the greatest wonders of the creation, and the
strangest forms of being, have been met with in the sea; and as people who only
occasionally saw them were not draughtsmen, but had to describe the monsters they
had seen on their return to land, their effigies came to be exceedingly marvellous, and
unlike the originals.
The Northern Ocean, especially, was their abode, and, among the Northern nations,
tales of Kraken, Sea-Serpents, Whirlpools, Mermen, &c., &c., lingered long after they
were received with doubt by other nations; but perhaps the most credulous times were
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when no travellers’ tales seem too gross for
belief, as can well be seen in the extreme popularity, throughout all Europe, of the
“Voyages and Travels of Sir John Maundeville,” who, though he may be a myth, and
his so-called writings a compilation, yet that compilation represented the sum of
knowledge, both of Geography, and Natural History, of countries not European, that
was attainable in the first half of the fourteenth century.
All the old Naturalists copied from one another, and thus compiled their writings.
Pliny took from Aristotle, others quote Pliny, and so on; but it was reserved for the age
of printing to render their writings available to the many, as well as to represent the
creatures they describe by pictures (“the books of the unlearned”), which add so much
piquancy to the text. Mine is not a learned disquisition. It is simply a collection of
zoological curiosities, put together to suit the popular taste of to-day, and as such only
should it be critically judged.
JOHN ASHTON.
Contents
.
Introductory
Amazons
Pygmies
Giants
Early Men
Wild Men
Hairy Men
The Ouran Outan
Satyrs
The Sphynx
Apes
Animal Lore
The Manticora
The Lamia
The Centaur
The Gorgon
The Unicorn
The Rhinoceros
The Gulo
The Bear
The Fox
The Wolf
Were-Wolves
The Antelope
The Horse
The Mimick Dog
The Cat
The Lion
The Leontophonus—Pegasus—Crocotta
The Leucrocotta—Eale—Cattle Feeding Backwards
Animal Medicine
The Su
The Lamb-Tree
The Chimaera
The Harpy and Siren
The Barnacle Goose
Remarkable Egg
Moon Woman
The Griffin
The Phœnix
The Swallow
The Martlet, and Foot-Less Birds
Snow Birds
The Swan
The Alle, Alle
The Hoopoe and Lapwing
The Ostrich
The Halcyon
The Pelican
The Trochilus
Woolly Hens
The Two-Headed Wild Geese
Four-Footed Duck
Fish
Mermen
Whales
The Sea-Mouse
The Sea-Hare
The Sea-Pig
The Walrus
The Ziphius
The Saw Fish
The Orca
The Dolphin
The Narwhal
The Swamfisck
The Sahab
The Circhos
The Remora
The Dog-Fish and Ray
The Sea Dragon
The Sting Ray
Senses of Fishes
Zoophytes
Sponges
The Kraken
Crayfish and Crabs
The Sea-Serpent
Serpents
Wormes and Dragons
The Crocodile
The Basilisk and Cockatrice
The Salamander
The Toad
The Leech
The Scorpion
The Ant
The Bee
The Hornet
Index
CURIOUS CREATURES.
Let us commence our researches into curious Zoology with the noblest of created beings,
Man; and, if we may believe Darwin, he must have gone through many phases, and gradual
mutations, before he arrived at his present proud position of Master and Conqueror of the
World.
This philosopher does not assign a high place in the animal creation to proud man’s
protogenitor, and we ought almost to feel thankful to him for not going further back. He
begins with man as an Ascidian, which is the lowest form of anything of a vertebrate
character, with which we are acquainted; and he says thus, in his “Descent of Man”:—
“The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata, at which we are able to
obtain an obscure glance, apparently consisted of a group of marine animals, resembling
the larvæ of existing Ascidians. These animals probably gave rise to a group of fishes, as
lowly organised as the lancelet; and from these the Ganoids, and other fishes like the
Lepidosiren, must have been developed. From such fish a very small advance would carry
us on to the amphibians. We see that birds and reptiles were once intimately connected
together; and the Monotremata now, in a slight degree, connect mammals with reptiles.
But no one can, at present, say by what line of descent the three higher, and related classes
— namely, mammals, birds, and reptiles, were derived from either of the two lower vertebrate
classes, namely, amphibians, and fishes. In the class of mammals the steps are not difficult
to conceive which led from the ancient Monotremata to the ancient Marsupials; and from
these to the early progenitors of the placental mammals. We may thus ascend to the
Lemuridæ; and the interval is not wide from these to the Simiadæ. The Simiadæ then
branched off into two great stems, the New World, and Old World monkeys; and from the
latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded.” . . .
“We have thus far endeavoured rudely to trace the genealogy of the Vertebrata, by the
aid of their mutual affinities. We will now look to man as he exists; and we shall, I think, be
able partially to restore during successive periods, but not in order of time, the structure of
our early progenitors. This can be effected by means of the rudiments which man still
retains, by the characters which occasionally make their appearance in him through
reversion, and by the aid of morphology and embryology. The various facts to which I shall
here allude, have been given in the previous chapters. The early progenitors of man were
no doubt once covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed and
capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail, having the proper muscles.
Their limbs and bodies were also acted on by many muscles, which now only occasionally
reappear, but are normally present in the Quadrumana.... The foot, judging from the great
toe in the fœtus, was then prehensile; and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their
habits, frequenting some warm, forest-clad land. The males were provided with great
canine teeth, which served them as formidable weapons.”

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin