This curious process consists in attaching to the part that remains an
exact substitute for the piece lost. For this purpose the falconer is
always provided with pinions, (right and left,) and with tail-feathers
of hawks, or with the feathers separated from the pinion, carefully
preserved and numbered, so as to prevent mistake in taking a true match
for the injured feather. He then with a sharp knife gently parts the web
of the feather to be repaired, at its thickest part, and cuts the shaft
obliquely forward, so as not to damage the web on the opposite edge. He
next cuts the substitute feather as exactly as possible at the
corresponding point, and with the same slope.
For the purpose of uniting them, he is provided with an iron needle,
with broad triangular points at both ends; and after wetting the needle
with salt and water, he thrusts it into the centre of the pith of each
part, as truly straight, and as nearly to the same length in each as may
be. When this operation has been skilfully performed, the junction is so
neat that an inexperienced eye would hardly discern the point of union;
and as the iron rusts, from having been wetted with brine, there is
little or no danger of separation.—_Sebright._
IMPOSTHUME, _s._ A collection of purulent matter in a bag or cyst.
INBRED, _a._ Produced within; hatched or generated within.
INCAGE, _v._ To coop up, to shut up; to confine in a cage, or any
narrow space.
INCH, _s._ The twelfth part of a foot.
INCISION, _s._ A cut, a wound made with a sharp instrument.
INCISOR, _s._ Cutter, tooth in the forepart of the mouth.
INCORPORATE, _v._ To mingle different ingredients so as they shall
make one mass; to unite, to associate, to embody.
INCUBATION, _s._ The act of sitting upon eggs to hatch them.
_Incubation._—It is probable birds are endowed with an instinctive power
of regulating the necessary heat for this purpose; of course, should the
heat of the air, together with the natural warmth of the body, on the
close contact of the bird to the eggs, be too great, her feelings would
dictate the necessity of leaving them for a time to cool. At the early
period of incubation birds quit their eggs more frequently than at the
time the fetus is more perfect. Yet, in the advanced state, the embryo
young is not in more danger of being destroyed, if so much; for we have
frequently found a living fetus in an egg that has been taken from the
nest two days. If, however, the young is within a few hours of being
excluded, and the egg is suffered to be some time cold, it either dies,
or becomes so weak as not to be able to extricate itself from the shell.
Various degrees of heat will enlarge the embryo young, but regular heat
seems necessary to its production; and yet artificial heat, regulated by
the brooding of a bird, will not produce young with such certainty. In
Egypt, a vast quantity of eggs are hatched by artificial heat in stoves.
It is probable, however, one third or one fourth miscarry. The necessary
heat for this purpose is about ninety-six degrees of Fahrenheit’s
thermometer, or thirty-two of Reaumur’s scale. Birds frequently turn and
change the situation of their eggs in the nest; besides this, it is
possible that the moisture of the bird’s body may assist the natural
growth of the fœtus and the production of the young.
The male birds of some species supply the place of the female on the
nest; but then it is of short duration, and rarely, if ever, when the
eggs are near hatching; at that time the female is frequently fed by the
male. This is not common to all species, but very conspicuous in the
rook, the pigeon, and many others. Many species of birds possess a
reservoir for food, called a craw, or crop; this seems to answer the
same purpose as the first stomach in ruminating animals. Here it is the
food is softened and prepared for the stomach; from this reservoir it is
by some ejected for the purpose of feeding their young; conspicuous in
the pigeon.
The rook has a small pouch under the tongue, in which it carries food to
its young. It is probable the use of the craw may be extended further
than is generally imagined; for besides the common preparation of the
food to assist its digestion in the stomach, there are some species that
actually secrete a lacteal substance in the breeding season, which,
mixing with the half-digested food, is ejected to feed and nourish the
young. The mammæ, from which this milky liquor is produced, are situated
on each side the upper part of the breast, immediately under the craw.
In the female turtle dove we have met with these glands tumid with milky
secretion, and we believe it common to both sexes of the dove genus. The
cormorant or pelican genus possess no craw; but, to supply its place,
they have a loose skin at the base of the under mandibles, capable of
great distension, in which they carry fish to their young. The bustard
is said to possess a bag of an astonishing size, for the purpose of
retaining water; but the most unaccountable and extraordinary formation
in the trachea of many of the males of the duck genus, called a
labyrinth, is beyond our reach to discover the use of, as well as the
singular flexure in the windpipe of the hooping swan and crane.
* * * * *
_Attention during Incubation._—There is this distinction in the hen: in
some, the desire of sitting or incubation is predominant, which they
will repeat to the fifth or sixth time in the year, to their emaciation
or almost destruction: in others the desire is so slight, that they will
probably sit but twice, or even once in the season, and then not
steadily. It is for the skilful breeder to take advantage of this
variation of quality, the one kind furnishing plenty of eggs for the
other to sit upon.
It is proper to place corn and water beside the sitting hen, whenever
it may appear necessary, withdrawing them as soon as she is satisfied,
not only to encourage steadiness of incubation, but to support the
constitutions of those in which the natural excitement is so powerful,
that they will remain several successive days upon the nest, at the
risk of famishing. I have had instances of hens of this description
fainting outright, and appearing as dead, on their finally leaving the
nest with the chickens, in a state of total emaciation, having,
probably, not eaten or drank more than once in three or four days,
during the term of their incubation, twenty-one days. The plan of
feeding on the nest should be invariably pursued with all frequent
sitters.—_Montagu_—_Moubray._
INCURABLE, _a._ Not admitting remedy, not to be removed by medicine;
irremediable, hopeless.
INDIAN RUBBER, or CAOUTCHOUC, _s._ An elastic gum procured from a
South American tree, called the Syphonia Uastica. It is mostly
brought into Europe in the shape of bottles, which are formed by
spreading the gum over moulds of clay.
INDIGO, _s._ A plant, by the Americans called anil, used in dyeing
for a blue colour.
INFECT, _v._ To act upon by contagion; to fill with something
hurtfully contagious.
INFECTION, _s._ Contagion, mischief by communication.
INFLAME, _v._ To kindle, to set on fire; to heat the body morbidly
with obstructed matter; to fire with passion.
INFLAMMATION, _s._ The act of setting on flame; the heat of any
morbid part occasioned by obstruction.
Inflammation is a disorder of the blood-vessels, depending upon their
having too much blood in them, or upon that blood being impure and
acrimonious, or upon the blood vessels themselves being in a diseased
state.
Cool air is always of service in inflammatory diseases, and cold air is
sometimes still better; even turning the horse out, if the weather is
dry, is perhaps the best situation of any. Inflammation may be general
or local. General inflammation is fever, of which there is but one kind
in the horse, and that may almost always be cured by early and copious
bleeding.—_White._
INFLAMMATORY, _a._ Having the power of inflaming.
INFUSION, _s._ The act of pouring in, instillation; the act of
steeping any thing in moisture without boiling; the liquor made
by infusion.
INJECTION, _s._ The act of casting in; any medicine made to be
injected by a syringe, or other instrument, into any part of the
body.
INNINGS, _s._ Lands recovered from the sea; term in cricket.
INOCULATION, _s._ The practice of transplanting the small-pox, by
infusion of the matter from ripened pustules into the veins of
the uninfected.
INSECT, _s._ Insects are so called from a separation in the middle
of their bodies, whereby they are cut into two parts, which are
joined together by a small ligature, as we see in wasps and
common flies.
INSNARE, _v._ To entrap, to catch in a trap, gin, or snare.
INSTINCT, _s._ The power which determines the will of brutes; a
desire or aversion in the mind, not determined by reason or
deliberation.
They who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to
instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which, in some instances,
raises the brute creation as it were above reason, and in others leaves
them so far below it.
It has been remarked that every species of bird has a mode of
nidification peculiar to itself; so that a schoolboy would at once
pronounce on the sort of nest before him. This is the case among fields
and woods and wilds; but, in the villages round London, where mosses and
gossamer, and cotton from vegetables, are hardly to be found, the nest
of the chaffinch has not that elegant, finished appearance, nor is it so
beautifully studded with lichens, as in a more rural district; and the
wren is obliged to construct its house with straws and dry grasses,
which do not give it that rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the
edifices of that little architect. Again, the regular nest of the house
martin is hemispheric; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice, may
happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform to
the obstruction, and becomes flat, or oval, or compressed.
In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and consistent.
There are three creatures, the squirrel, the field-mouse, and the bird
called the nuthatch (_Sitta Europæa_) which live much on hazel-nuts; and
yet they open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping off
the small end, splits the shell in two with his long fore-teeth, as a
man does with his knife; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, as
regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one would
wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it: while the last picks
an irregular ragged hole with its bill: but as this artist has no paws
to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman, he
fixes it, as it were, in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some
crevice; when, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. We
have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post where nuthatches have
been known to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily
penetrated them. While at work they make a rapping noise that may be
heard at a considerable distance.
It is no doubt exceedingly difficult, and perhaps impossible, to define
where instinct ends, and reason begins, in animals. But that some of
them are endowed with a faculty which does not come under the usual
notion of instinct, by whatever other name we may choose to call it,
will, I think, hardly allow of a dispute. This, as it strikes me,
appears in the different degrees of intelligence which we are accustomed
to recognize as elevating one species of animal above another,—as the
half-reasoning elephant for instance, and the friend of man, the dog,
above numberless others. Now, instinct of one tribe, one would think, as
much as in another, must be full and perfect, and would not admit of our
considering the degree of intelligence manifested in one species as
higher or lower than that possessed by another. Again: much more must we
conceive that the proper instinct of any species will be fully, and
therefore equally, possessed by all individuals of that species. How,
then, upon the notion of mere instinct, shall we account for that
superiority of intelligence, which is found in one individual, to others
of the same species, and which is familiar to those who are employed
about, or in any way in the habit of conversing with, animals? But the
observation which appears to me most decidedly to carry the faculties of
animals to something exceeding the measure and character of instinct, is
that of the new and ingenious contrivances to which they will often have
recourse in situations, and upon occasions, much too accidental and
peculiar to admit of our imagining that they could have been
contemplated and provided against in the regular instinct of the whole
species. This we should naturally be disposed to conceive must have been
given to regulate the ordinary habits of the animals, and adapted to
those exigencies of their mode of life which are continually occurring,
not to such as do rarely, and might, one would be tempted to say, never
occur. A few instances will, perhaps, better explain what I mean, and
carry more persuasion than my argument.
I was one day feeding the poor elephant (who was so barbarously put to
death at Exeter ’Change) with potatoes, which he took out of my hand.
One of them, a round one, fell on the floor, just out of the reach of
his proboscis. He leaned against his wooden bar, put out his trunk, and
could just touch the potato, but could not pick it up. After several
ineffectual efforts, he at last blew the potato against the opposite
wall with sufficient force to make it rebound, and he then, without
difficulty, secured it. Now it is quite clear, I think, that instinct
never taught the elephant to procure his food in this manner; and it
must, therefore, have been reason, or some intellectual faculty, which
enabled him to be so good a judge of cause and effect. Indeed, the
reflecting power of some animals is quite extraordinary. I had a dog who
was much attached to me, and who, in consequence of his having been tied
up on a Sunday morning, to prevent his accompanying me to church, would
conceal himself in good time on that day, and I was sure to find him
either at the entrance of the church, or, if he could get in, under the
place where I usually sat.
A gentleman, a good shot, lent a favourite old pointer to a friend who
had not much to accuse himself of in the slaughter of partridges,
however much he might have frightened them. After ineffectually firing
at some birds which the old pointer had found for him, the dog turned
away in apparent disgust, went home, and never could be persuaded to
accompany the same person afterwards.
I have been often much delighted with watching the manner in which some
of the old bucks in Bushy Park contrive to get the berries from the fine
thorn-trees there. They will raise themselves on their hind legs, give a
spring, entangle their horns in the lower branches of the tree, give
them one or two shakes, which make some of the berries fall, and they
will then quietly pick them up.—_White’s Selborne_—_Jesse._
INSULAR, _a._ Belonging to an island.
INTERMEW, _s._ The change of a hawk’s colour from red to white the
second year.
INTESTINA, _s._ An order in the Linnæan system of the class Vermes,
including earthworms and leeches.—_Crabbe._
INTESTINES, _s._ The guts, the bowels.
JOCKEY, _s._ A person that rides horses in the race; a man that
deals in horses.
JOCKEY, _v._ To jostle by riding against one; to cheat, to trick; to
ride; to ride unfairly.
JOINT, _s._ Articulation of limbs, juncture of moveable bones in
animal bodies; hinge; a knot in a plant. Out of joint, luxated,
slipped from the socket, or corresponding part where it
naturally moves.
JOURNEY, _s._ The travel of a day; travel by land.
IPECACUANHA, _s._ An Indian plant.
Ipecacuanha is sometimes employed as an expectorant in chronic cough and
asthmatic affections, and I believe with good effect when joined with
squills, ammoniacum, &c.—_White._
IRIS, _s._ The rainbow; the circle round the pupil of the eye, which
is striped and variegated.
Hanging from the upper edge of the pupil of the horse, are found two or
three round black bodies, as large as millet seeds. When the horse is
suddenly brought into an intense light, and the pupil is closed, these
bodies present a singular appearance, being squeezed out from between
the edges of the iris. An equal number, but much smaller, are attached
to the edge of the lower portion of the iris. Their general use is
probably to intercept portions of light which would be troublesome or
injurious; but their principal function is accomplished during the act
of grazing. They are larger on the upper edge of the iris, and are
placed on the outer side of the pupil, evidently to obstruct the light
in those directions in which it would come with greatest force, both
from above and even from below, while at the same time, the field of
view is perfectly open, so far as it regards the pasture on which the
horse is grazing.
The colour of the iris is, in some unknown way, connected with this
black point behind. Wall-eyed horses, whose iris is white, have no
uvea.—_The Horse._