of molluscous or soft animals. These shells, scattered over no less
than forty-nine tables, represent the architectural capacities of the
great order of soft-bodied animals, only inferior in rank, in Cuvier's
"Animal Kingdom," to the Vertebrate animals.
Upon the first table, before which the visitor will find himself (49),
are some interesting specimens of the well-known Cuttle fish,
exhibiting its varieties, including the common cuttle fish found upon
our coasts; those which have the power of secreting a dark fluid, and
those from India, whose ink-bags furnish artists with that valuable
brown called sepia. Here, too, are the skeletons of the slender
loligos, or sea leaves, known also as sea-pens; and the crozier shell.
Upon the next six tables (48-53), proceeding southward, are the
varieties of the Oyster, the Mussel, and beautiful Mother-of-pearl
shells. But hence the visitor will probably proceed rapidly to the
south; inasmuch as the varieties of the mussel family, including the
Chinese pearl mussel and Scotch pearl mussel, the borers, the club
shell, and the cockle family, are not generally interesting; but he
will probably linger for a few moments near the pond mussels placed
upon some of the tables (38-41). The tables numbered from 24 to 30 are
covered with the varieties of hard shells, which, however, present no
points of interest to the general visitor, who may at once pass on to
the varieties of the Nautilus and Argonaut, (tables 23, 24). And here,
too, we must entreat the visitor to forget the poetic history of the
inhabitants of those beautiful shells, and learn that the extended
arms of the nautilus are used only to clasp its shell; that it has no
sails of any kind. The varieties of the paper nautilus, or argonaut,
are the most delicate and beautiful. The next table (22) displays the
shell of the curious carrier, that embodies all kinds of foreign
substances with its shell; the slipper shell, and the rose bud. Upon
the next table (21) are the Screws; the curious ladder shells from
China; and upon table 20, are the varieties of fresh water Clubs. The
next two tables (18, 19) display some curious and beautiful shells,
including Venus's ear, the pagoda shell, and varieties of Snails,
including the apple snails. Proceeding on his southern way, the
visitor should pause to notice the ear shells, placed upon tables 18,
17, including the beautiful rainbow; the button shells, the rainbow
eardrop, and the pyramid upon table 16; the pomegranate from the Cape
of Good Hope, New Zealand imperial, and pheasant, and the West Indian
golden sun, upon table 15; the weaver's shuttle and pig cowries,
including the Chinese variety, highly valued by the Chinese, as an
ornament; also upon table 15, more varieties of cowries, including the
money cowry of Africa, used there as money, and the orange cowry from
the Friendly Islands, where it is worn as an ornament; the five
varieties of the Volutes, including the red clouded volute, the
Chinese imperial volute, the bishop's mitre, and the papal crown,
distributed upon tables 12 and 13. The Melons, the large varieties of
which are put to domestic uses by the Chinese, the olives, and butter
shells, upon table 11; the magilus, whelks, and the needle shell upon
table 10; the purple shell that emits the colour from which it is
named, the mulberry shell, and the unicorn shell, distributed upon
table 9; the tun shell, the harps, the harp helmets, and the helmets
upon which cameos are carved, distributed about tables 8 and 7; the
spindle shells, including the great tulip shells, and the turnip
shells, occasionally used as oil-vessels in Indian temples,
distributed about the tables 5, 6, and 7 are all worth examination.
The splendid cone shells, which include the king of the collection,
pointed out to visitors as the glory of the sea, from the Philippine
Islands, and the African setting sun cone, upon tables 5 and 4; the
rock shells upon table 4: the trumpet shells upon table 3, so called
after the large kinds which savage tribes have been known to use as
horns; and upon the last two tables, the stombs, including the
beautiful varieties from the West Indies and China, close the list.
* * * * *
The visitor has now reached the Southern Extremity of the Eastern
Zoological Gallery, and brought his first visit to a conclusion. He
may well pause, however, before dismissing from his mind the objects
which have engaged his attention.
First, then, he examined the varieties of MAMMALIA. The mammalia, of
which man himself is the highest type, are the leading class of the
great order of vertebrate, or back-boned animals, and fishes are the
lowest, the intermediate classes being birds and reptiles. VERTEBRATA
are of higher rank in the animal kingdom than the mollusca, or
soft-bodied animals, those having "red blood and a double-chambered
heart." The mammalia are the class which suckle their young; second to
them are the BIRDS; and then the blood cools, the organisation is
inferior, and the REPTILES are produced; and lastly come the FISHES,
with cold blood, and wanting aerial lungs. Philosophers, who have
settled the scheme of the world as one of progression, complication,
or development, trace animal life from the polypus, (which belongs to
the order of Radiata, or animals that have a central point in which
the vital force of the animal appears to preside, diverging in radii,
as in the sea-eggs, starfishes, coral, sponges); the polypus advances
to the Articulata, or jointed animals, including all kinds of worms,
leeches, or ringed animals, of which insects are the most highly
organised developments; next to the Mollusca, or soft-bodied animals;
and then from these, which include the shell-fish, the scheme
gradually progresses to the fish with backbones; and here the lowest
order of Vertebrata is developed: the fish merges into the reptile,
the reptile into the bird; the bird, as in the ornithorhyncus, into
the Mammalia.
Thus the gradations of life may be clearly apprehended by the visitor.
The highest development of animal life he has seen in the MAMMALIA
SALOON, all the animals of which produce their young alive and suckle
them; the order of life immediately below the mammalia, he has
examined in the marvellous varieties of birds arranged in the NORTHERN
GALLERY; then he turned to the west, and examined the third order of
animal life in the REPTILES; then the fourth order represented by
FISH; and so on till he watched the simpler forms of life in the
STAR-FISH and the SPONGE.
The history of this marvellous progress of animal life, so far as
scientific men have gazed into its deep mysteries, is surely worth
attention. Few have the courage and the enthusiasm to follow each
footstep of the tiny ant at his complex labours,--few are the Hubers
that dwell among us; but to us all is given the love of that knowledge
which opens our eyes to a few of the mysteries that lie thickly on our
path, in the formation of the gravel upon which we tread, the clouds
that grandly glide above us, and the leaves that gather upon the
trees. After all the labours of our learned men, we are only now
pressing, with trembling footsteps, the avenue to the endless schemes,
and systems, and wonders, that lie buried in and about our world.
Still let all who enter our museum, go there with the resolve to
accomplish something by their visit. Even in the common concerns of
life; in the petty matters that wear away the brain at last; in the
market-places of the world, this insight is not without its effect.
The heart is humbled as the eyes open to the grandeur of the scheme,
and to the consequent littleness of individual manhood; but again, the
breast swells with the purest of all pride, when the thinker says to
himself: I am the King--because the hero or highest type of the
Articulata, Radiata, Mammalia, or any order of vegetable or animal
life. All these great and complicated developments are the beautiful
works of the Great Unseen, but I am His masterpiece. One may well
dream in this zoological museum, amid the staring glass-eyed skins of
an inferior brotherhood--of the long, long time ago when the fossils,
which are now scattered here and there, to assure us of their former
vitality, moved about the world, before they were stricken with
universal death, and buried by nature, deep in her teeming bosom, to
flourish presently in the veins of plants--the plants to die again,
and be dug, long ages after, from our deep coal-fields. These thoughts
towards nature, towards the marvellous records of an antiquity, the
remoteness of which we cannot realise, will rise to the minds of all
visitors who can see in the vast collection of animal life through
which we have guided them, revelations of the endless forms and the
endless beauties that pass often unnoticed, because not understood,
under every step that man takes in the many journeys that lie between
his hopeful cradle and his inevitable grave.