The following indications will point out the reptiles which, in the present state of science, would offer the greatest interest for the collections of the museum.
North America—Testudo polyphemusor Gopher.Cistudo Blandingii, Holbrook.Emys rubridentris, Leconte.Emys floridaua, id.Emys mobylensis, Holbrook.Emys insculpta, Leconte.Emys aregoniensis, Halbrook.Emys hyeroglyphiea, Holbrook.Emys cumberlandensis, id.Emys conciuna, Leconte.Emys troostii, Holbrook.Emysaura serpentina, Dum. Bib. (large ones).Chlonura temminckii, Holbrook (young and grown).Trionyx muticus, (large ones).Trionyx spiniferus, (large ones).
As much as possible some living specimens of each of these kinds, as well as of all the other chelonians; these reptiles, whose flesh is eaten, abound in the markets of the United States.
Rana mugiensor Bull-frog; (living subjects).
All the small kinds of lizards and serpents and all the batraciens urodeles, with persisting gills.
Rattle snakes from the south which differ from those of the north (in alcohol).
We have nothing or almost nothing in reptile from the Californio, Yutacan and Guatemala;boas, thecrested basilicand thehorrible heloderme, a great lizard with tuberculiform scales, should be sent us.
Antilles.—Cuba nourrishes a prodigious quantity of reptiles which are entirely unknown to us.
The museum possesses only some kinds of this class of vertebres from Jamaïca.
Birds and mammiferes.—The study of zoology in the Museum of natural history is not confined to the observation of the forms of animals, to the description of their organs; it proposes, besides, to examine their habits, their development, their instinct, and to see if they can be of any use. Formerly, nothing could be learnt of these essential objects but by the relations of travellers. Establishments formed at great expense by princes or rich amateurs to collect and take care of rare animals, were rather objects of luxury and curiosity than an object of study. But since we have had a menagerie at the museum, a new career of observation is open to naturalists. There, animals can be followed in all degrees of their developments, and their manner of living can be compared with their organisation, that anatomy discovers after death; positive knowledge, acquired on the so important phenomena of copulation, gestation, birth; the varieties which depend on age distinguished from those which are produced by climate, nourishment, by crossing races, and the difference determined which really exists between species. If these animals are of a nature to render services to domestic economy or agriculture, and if they breed there are the means to raise and domesticate them, and, so, to procure new resources. The Vigogne, the Lama, the Alpaca, the Tapir, the kanguroo, the Casoar and many others, will pershaps one day be very useful.
Considered with relation to science, there are few animals strangers to Europe which are not useful as a study. The history of the greatest part of them is yet very incomplete. That of the lion was not well known until after the lionness of the menagerie had whelps; it is also since two elephants have died ad the menagerie of the museum that an exact knowledge of the anatomy of this great quadruped has been acquired.
Travellers cannot be too strongly recommended to neglect nothing in order to send animals to us when they have it in their power to find them living.
The small quadrupeds, chiefly those that burrow and hide themselves in the ground are the least known. The bat tribe are still less so, and merit not less the attention and care of travellers.
Animals can easily be procured by applying to the natives of the country who know where they are to be found and frequently meet them. They can take them in snares and bring them in alive. It will not be more difficult for them to take in their early youth the quadrupeds whose lurking-places they know, and birds whose nets they have seen.
The younger the animals are, the easier it is to accustom them to live in cages. They will require, at first, particular care; it will be well to feed them for some weeks on shore before shipment, and too much pain cannot be taken to tame them. An animal that is not frightened at the sight of those who take care of him, is always in better health and resists more easily the fatigues of a sea-voyage than one who remains wild, and there is scarce any animal that does not yield to kind treatment.
Nourishment in excess, when they are shut up, and without the power of taking exercise, would be injurious. The surest way of keeping them is merely to give them what is necessary.
After a suitable nourishment, cleanliness is most necessary to them. Often, on shipboard, some one would be found who will take care of them, either for amusement or a slight remuneration. It is essential to take precautions to prevent the animals being teased and irritated by passengers.
As there are always difficulties in the transportation of living animals, there is an easier way whose results are more extended; that is the spoils of dead animals.
Quadrupeds can be procured either by sending hunters in the interior of the country, or by applying to the natives of the country.
They will content themselves with bringing the skin, the bony head and feet of the great animals that they have killed in places too remote to be preserved or transported entire.
The mammifers of a size small enough to be enclosed in a jar or cask, should be put in alcohol. Those that are too large to preserve in this manner should be skinned, and care should be taken to send with the skin the feet and head, with the brain taken out, or if that cannot be done, the jaws, at least, should be sent. In preparing the head, care should be taken not to damage the skull. The brain can be extracted with care without increasing the occipital hole.
We shall speak, further on, of the means to be employed and the precautions to be taken for the preservation of the skins and for that of animals placed in alchool.
When the skeleton of the animals can be joined to the skin, a great service will be rendered to science. The officers can entrust with this care the surgeons of the ships, for whom this operation will be easy.
It is not necessary that the skeletons should be set up. After having boiled the bones, taken of the flesh and dried them well, all those of the same animal should be put in a cloth-sack with moss, sea-weed, rolls of paper, or some other soft and dry matter that they may not rub one agains the other. Those that are very frail should be enveloped with paper and care should be taken not to lose any.
Hunters ought to take care to proportion their shot to the size of the birds, so as not to injure them. As soon as a bird is killed, the blood should be staunched as soon as possible, and a little cotton placed in the bill and nostrils of the bird, so that the blood that comes out may not injure the feathers, especially those of the head. If blood has been spilt on the feathers, dust should be put on them and renewed until they are dry; they can be made bright by rubbing them lightly between the fingers. After the bird is cold and the blood coagulated, it should be taken by the claws and tail, to place it in a bein of paper; these beins are arranged in a box, so that the feathers may not rub.
Birds should be skinned like quadrupeds, and care should be taken to preserve with the same precautions the bills and heads. Birds should be skinned more promptly than quadrupeds, because as soon as putrefactions begins, the feathers fall off. In opening the skin on the belly, care should be taken to separate the feathersso that they be not injured. Plaster or dust should always be put on the skin, in order to thoroughly absorb the moisture. The coccygis should be left with the skin; without this, the feathers of the tail are in danger of fallingoff. It will be the same with the bones of the extremities of the wings. If the bird has a fleshy crest, the head should be preserved in alcohol. When there are several specimens of the same class, it will always be useful to send one in this liquor.
It is desirable to procure, at the same time, the male and female, and specimens of the same kind, some young, others old, birds differing much according to their age. It is well to have also the eggs and nests. To preserve the eggs, a little hole is made at both ends, they are emptied and packed in bran or very fine dust. Care should be taken to indicate by numbers corresponding to those of the skin that laid them. Without this, these sorts of collections are useless. The same precaution should be taken with the nests, which should always be packed in a different box from the eggs.
The skeleton of birds too large to be put in liquor should be sent, if possible.
It is useless to stuff birds. They take up too much room; and this operation, which can only be well done by experienced persons, it is better to postpone till they arrive at the place of their destination. It is enough that the skins be prepared and well preserved.
After having pointed out, in a general manner, what would enrich our collections, we think it necessary to specify the animals, whose existence is known, which the museum is without, or has not in good order, or desires to procure.
North America.—All the mammiferes which resemble our mole preserved in alcohol.
The grizzly bear of the mountains; grown and young.The empetra and all the marmots, especially the small kinds.The different kinds of condylures.The saccomysThe kindspseudostomaanddiplostomaof American naturalists.The bearich porcupine, hedge-hog.The lemming of Hudson's bay.The wolf and carnivorous animals of the same region.The antelope of the rocky mountains.The mountain sheep.The different kinds of foxes.The ovibos or musk ox, an animal yet scarcely known in Europe
Labelling and packing collections.
It is desirable that each one of the animals sent as skin, skeleton, or in alcohol, should be accompanied by a note which indicates with precision:
The country where the animals is found;Upon what it lives;Its habits, if they are known;Its common name;If it is useful or otherwise;The uses of its skins, flesh, grease, etc.;Popular and superstitions opinions concerning it among the native of thecountry;Its sex and age, if these are known;The season in which it has been taken.
These notes written in a little note-book should have each a number corresponding to that attached to the objects to which they relate.
That there may be no confusion with regard to the place where the objects and notes are deposited, it would be for the person who sends them to verify all the numbers and arrange them in such a manner that they form a series, so that it may be certain that such a butterfly belongs to such a crysalis, such a shell-fish to such a shell. These numbers shoul be written on parchment or squares of lead, attached with strong thread, either to skins inclosed in boxes or to jars or casks containing animals. It is easy to have the numbers distinctly marked on bits of lead; then they will be no uncertainly about the characters.
Thin pieces of tin can also be used with the numbers engraved with a steel-point and these can be attached to animals immersed in alcohol.
A little cord with knots should be attached to objects thus preserved and to those which are in bones and very dry. These knots form two series separated by an interval; the first series marks the 10th, the second, the units; by this means any number can be specified. We even know by experience that the same of an object written with ink on a piece of parchment can be attached with a thread; alcohol does not alter it.
We have now to speak of the means of packing the objects of zoology, so that they may arrive in France in a better state of preservation.
Objects sent are either parts of animals, or entire animals preserved in alchool.
The skins of animals and birds may be attacked by Dermestes and other analogous insects, in warm countries especially, unless great care is taken to prevent it.
The surest means is to use the arsenic preservative known by the name of Becœur's soap.
This is the preservative employed in the museum and its success is certain. It is well to use it especially for rare and precious specimens, about whose preservation there is any cause of anxiety. It is wise to plaster the skins of birds with it, especially the claws and bill.
It is well, likewise, to plaster the naked parts of quadrupeds, such as the face and hands of apes.
Each bird or quadruped of small or middling size, thus prepared, and in the inside of which a little cotton is put, not to give it a form, but that the different parts of the skin need not touch, should be placed in a sack or enveloped in paper well closed, and these sacks should be ranged in a box, which should be well pointed, so that not only dampness but even air may be excluded.
The skins of large animals, too thick to be preserved by means of arsenical soap, should be rubbed whith salt. The skin of the animal should be stretched, covered carefully with salt within and without, and when, after several days it is sufficiently saturated, it should be folded with the epiderm inside, and put in a box, or simply wrapped in cloth, straw or any other dry substance, and keept as much as possible beyond the reach of dampness.
The means that we have pointed out are simple, easy and require little time.
We come now to the way of preserving animals in alcohol.
If they are quadrupeds, birds, reptiles or fish of considerable size, each specimen should be wrapped in linen tied round the body with thread; if the animals are very small like mice, small vipers, shell-fish or worms, the linen should be large; a certain number of these animals are placed upon it so that they do not touch; then the linen is rolled upon it self, so as to make a doll sowed with thread, that it may not unwind; afterwards, place the bundles side by side in a cask. When the cask is full, so that the bundles are packed close, it should be filled with brandy, rum or whiskey; generally some strong liquor; afterwards it should be pitched with care, so that the liquor may not escape. This method has two advantages: 1oanimals wrapped in linen cannot tear each other with their nails or spines; 2othe linen having imbibed the alcohol, if the cask leakes, the animal will not be entirely dry; and when the casks are opened, as they should be several times on a long voyage, there be an opportunity of filling them again with alcohol.
The spirituous liquor be from 16 to 22° of the areometer of Baumé; stronger, it destroys the colors of animals; it is used at 22° only for mammifers. All spirituous liquor are equally good. The color less are preferable.
Before wrapping vertebrated animals in cloth, an incision should be made in the breast and abdomen, to let the liquor run in the inside of the body. The opening should be very small, in the side, and not in the middle. If the mammifers are large, it is well to pour the alchool in the intestinal canal, either by the mouth or anus.
It is well to renew the liquor, after the animal has remained in it some time: this precaution is absolutely necessary, when there is several animals in the cask; if it is neglected, they may corrupt.
It is well to arrange the animals so that they may not touch the bottom of the cask.
Generation of the Pouch-Animals.—Mexico and expecially Brazil produce, as it is known, several varieties of the Marsupial Mammifers, all the family of the Didelphides, but some, such as the Didelphes, provided with a true pouch, other, such as the Micoures and the Hermiures, without pouch properly so called, doubtless it will be possible to procure live specimens of both sexes. We cannot too strongly urge the naturalist to neglect nothing to clear up the mystery, yet but partially penetrated, of the manner these mammifers reproduce kind. We are far indeed, from the period, when it was believed that the animals were formed at the dugs of their dams. The labors of Hunter, Home, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire de Blainville and other observers, have long since removed from science this inadmissible anomaly; some years ago, M. Owen, having the fortunate opportunity of examining the uterus of a female Kanguroo, that died in bringing forth, and of dissecting the embryo it contained has developped several facts of great interest.
But the intra-uterine gestation of the marsupials, and the second singular gestation peculiar to them, still remain new and important subjects of study for anatomy and comparative physiology. Animals or parts of animals sent in alcohol from America, the Indian Archipelago, or New-Holland, some cases of reproduction occuring in Paris and London, such are the imperfect elements which the French and English physiologists possess; their efforts to procure a certain number of specimens have always been unsuccessful. This determined Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to draw up in 1824, and the administration of the museum to send to all the countries where the Marsupials are found, detailed information on the state of the question at that time, and of the researches imperiously required by the wants of science from observers in those regions.
1oIf learned naturalists could send a series, so that the evolution of the ovula, the embryo, and the egg could be studied from its fecundation to its discharge from the uterus, they would thus supply Zootomists with all the elements of the great work we have just pointed out.
2oTo observe with care the circumstances of the passage of the fœtus to the vagina of the pouch.
3oTo describe in the most accurate manner the way the fœtus clings to the teat. They should determine this by observations of several specimens of different ages, and repeat, if possible, on the Didelphides, the curious experiments made by Collie and Morgan on the mammary fœtus of a Marsurpial of an entirely different family.
4oTo determine exactly and analyse the liquids contained in the breasts of the dam, and the digestive organs of the mammary fœtus.
5oTo examine in the living subjects the remarkable arrangement of the respiratoryorgans, discovered by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, which establish a connexion between the posterior nostrils and the cavity of the larynx.
We are entirely without notions concerning the abdominal folds, which, in this kind, take the place of the pouch, in a certain degree, and know nothing of the modifications these folds pass through in the different epochs of gestation.
Anthropology.—The countries to which these instructions are adressed to are doubtless among those where naturalists can collect the greatest number of interesting facts for this branch of natural history, formerly neglected and to which has been given, for some years past, an impulse worthy of its high importance. In Mexico and in the United States three of the principal human races are found together; the race peculiar to America, the Caucasian race from different countries of Europe, and the Ethiopian carried over in its train. All these races cross-breed, and from the crossing of the half-breeds with them and each other, result many curious combinations, whose scientific study is of the highest interest.
It has unhappily been, for a longtime, as difficult as it is important. If the plain and marked characteristics of the two animal species often disappear; if a skilful analysis, enlightened by direct comparison with analogous objects, can alone discover them, how can the anthropologist size between two neighbouring types, express and transmit by description, light, fleeting distinctions, some times invisible for him, who has not the habit of observing them?
Three inventions or new application, made almost simultaneously, have happily removed part of the great difficulties, and opened a new era in the natural history of man; the daguerreotype, which fixes and engraves with geometrical precision, the general shape of the body and the features of the face; the Cephalometer of Antelme M. D. which measures and sketches with a process almost as exact, the dimensions and forms of the head, and enables one to determine, as nearly as possible, the mean dimensions and typical form of the head of a people the sex and age: in fine, the perfection and happy application to anthropology of the process of moulding, performed directly, or by the aid of the ingenious physonotype of M. Sauvage; a process by which the whole head and, if necessary, the members of the body are preserved and placed before our eys.
We have the hope that, with the aid of the Daguerreotype and physionotype, the american naturalists will enrich anthropology with results of great interest. By photographic portraits, such as those presented to the Academy by M. Thiesson; by mouldings to be added to the fine collection made by M. Dumoutier, now in the museum; by colored drawnings, by descriptions and measures, they would transmit us information of extreme precision, true scientific elements, to which the committee would attach the greatest importance.
We think it our duty to direct the researches of the american naturalists, not only to the different varieties of the American race, but also to the half-breeds, yet so little known, of both, and, also, to the offspring of the crossing of the first with the Caucasian race. We request them, as soon as they shall have determined exactly the physical characteristics of these difficult varieties, to neglect no information that may enlighten us as to their intellectual capacity.
We would, likewise, entreat these gentlemen to specify exactly and express by colored drawnings done with care, the different states of the hues of the American races and half-breeds, from the moment of their birth up to the period that they arrive at the normal color of their kind.
We would desire them, besides, to collect, of these same races, their half-breeds, and the white race, more minute particulars than as yet obtained, on the duration and difficult phases and epoch of puberty.
Chemistry and agriculture.—These are the principal forms that allow the use of Caoutchouc without dissolving it and without altering the heat.
1oStraight tubes; elbowed tubes; tubes in T of different thickness and diameter;
2oFull cylinders, to be cut in France as wanted;
3oRectangular plates, cut in France;
4oCaps to cork bottles and flasks.
It would be desirable to examine, in an economical point of view, the question of the preparation of preserved sugar, transportable to France, and giving, by a simple preparation, elastic caoutchouc/
Dye woods and other vegetable products.—Details on the working of dye woods, their qualities, uses, marks, would be interesting for technology.
It would not be less useful to send samples, branches, leaves and flowers of the usual plants, whose products are or may be applied to tanning; the extraction of oils, etc.
Remains of animals.—It is known that domestic animals, transported by Europeans to America, have multiplied and spread. It results from this that products which in Europe and particulary in France, are needed by agriculture and the different acts, are in great part lost in Brazil and several countries of south America. To send them to France or our colonies should be prepared:
1oFor manure, blood coagulated by heat or lime, and dried;
2oFor nourishment or manure, dried flesh;
3oIntestines prepared and dried which, blown up, might be employed to hold and preserve aliments which might be utilised as primary matters for different fabrications, such as for harmonic chords, whip cords, rattles, machines, gold beaters skin and cartridge paper; applications which one of the committee, M. Payen, discovered, by and which would employ all the remains of intestines useless for the usage we have described;
4oTendons for glue factories.
There are other animal remains whose use has been long appreciated, horns, and feet, and skins. But the transportation of the first might be rendered less expensive by first pressing them down, and the last are, as it is known, often attacked on shipboard by insects. To prevent these injuries so hurtful to commerce the employment of different substances should be tried such as pyroligneous acid, the chloride of lime, the bichloride of mercury.
If naturalists wish to try these different processes, we doubt not that merchants, for whom this question is one of great interest, will assist their experiments by all the means in their power.
An appeal is likewise made to agriculturits for seed of north American forest trees.
FOOTNOTES:[1]About two hundred volumes, bound three maps and four cases of minerals were transmitted.[2]According to this resolve 150 volumes of legislative documents, 13 copies of the geological reports, 52 scientific reports, 20 maps, have been transmitted.[3]About two hundred volumes of legislative documents, and 10 copies of the natural History, of New-York, with 10 Geologic maps, destined to the king, the chamber of peers, the chamber of deputies, the royal library, the ministers of justice, of public instructions, of commerce, of finances and to A. Vattemare, were transmitted.[4]On mountains, each species of plants only grows to a determined hight, trawellers can therefore notice the most remarkable of them either by their shape, size or their abundance, indicating them by their names or by figure; and point-out by lines where these species cease growing adding a certain number of zones and indicating the zone in which each plant grows.
[1]About two hundred volumes, bound three maps and four cases of minerals were transmitted.
[1]About two hundred volumes, bound three maps and four cases of minerals were transmitted.
[2]According to this resolve 150 volumes of legislative documents, 13 copies of the geological reports, 52 scientific reports, 20 maps, have been transmitted.
[2]According to this resolve 150 volumes of legislative documents, 13 copies of the geological reports, 52 scientific reports, 20 maps, have been transmitted.
[3]About two hundred volumes of legislative documents, and 10 copies of the natural History, of New-York, with 10 Geologic maps, destined to the king, the chamber of peers, the chamber of deputies, the royal library, the ministers of justice, of public instructions, of commerce, of finances and to A. Vattemare, were transmitted.
[3]About two hundred volumes of legislative documents, and 10 copies of the natural History, of New-York, with 10 Geologic maps, destined to the king, the chamber of peers, the chamber of deputies, the royal library, the ministers of justice, of public instructions, of commerce, of finances and to A. Vattemare, were transmitted.
[4]On mountains, each species of plants only grows to a determined hight, trawellers can therefore notice the most remarkable of them either by their shape, size or their abundance, indicating them by their names or by figure; and point-out by lines where these species cease growing adding a certain number of zones and indicating the zone in which each plant grows.
[4]On mountains, each species of plants only grows to a determined hight, trawellers can therefore notice the most remarkable of them either by their shape, size or their abundance, indicating them by their names or by figure; and point-out by lines where these species cease growing adding a certain number of zones and indicating the zone in which each plant grows.
Note de transcription:La Table des Matières au début de ce livre électronique a été ajoutée pour faciliter la navigation. Les tables, dont l'une se trouvait sur les pages 46 et 48 et l'autre sur les pages 47 et 49, ont été reconstituées.
Transcriber's note:The table of content at the beginning of this e-book was added for the reader's convenience. The table originally printed on pages 46 and 48, and the table originally printed on pages 47 and 49 have been reassembled into their proper order.
FINIS.