beaver; the rhinoceros a species of elephant; and the ass a species of horses, &c. and all this for no other reason, but that there is some little analogy between the number of the teats and the teeth of these animals, or some like resemblance in the figure of their hoofs. And this is, however, without omitting any thing, the whole to which this system of nature for the four-footed 'animals is reducible. Would it not be more simple, natural, and true, to say that an ass is an ass, and a cat a cat, than to make, without know ing for what reason, an ass a horse, and a cata lynx,or wild spotted cat? One may, by this slight specimen, judge of all the rest of Linnæus's system. Serpents, according to this author, are amphibious animals, lobsters insects, and not only so, but insects of the same order with lice and fleas; and all shell-fish, crustaceous and soft fish are worms; oysters, the thorn-back, sea-stars, scuttle-fish, &c. are, according to him, no other than worms. Is there then any thing further necessary, to evince how arbitrary, how chimerical his divisions are, and how illgrounded his system is?

;

ably long and soft, but longest upon the belly; the colour was in some places black, and in some a mixture of yellow and brown: the back was chiefly black, not however without some mixture of brown; on the contrary, the neck, the head, and the tail, were rather tawney than black; the face was whitish, with yellow stripes that came down between the eyes, from the top of the head to the nose; the hair round the eyes was almost entirely black the ears had more white than yel low, and the legs were thinly covered with short brown hair; the tail was considerably thicker towards the body than towards the end, and was marked with three black rings, and three yellow, very beautiful and exact, growing gradually narrower as the tail grew less; the general figure of the head was triangular; it was largest in theupper and hinder part, and gradually diminished towards the nose, which was very sharp, with two nostrils of a semicircular figure; on each side of the mouth were smellers, or whiskers, or white bristly hair; those of the upper lip being longer than those of the lower; the upper lip itself being much the longest, so as to project beyond the other an inch and an half; the ears were large towards the base, and sharp at the extremity: they were remarkable for their quick motion, and were provided with very strong muscles.

where it strongly adhered, as well as lower down. It was bound to each corner of the eye by a small tendon it was coloured with red vessels, and, as it was extremely moveable, it was drawn up with great facility when it perfectly covered or closed the whole eye.

The feet, or paws, were not very long, but those of the hinder legs were much larger and stronger than those of the fore; the bottoms of thein were quite without hair, but were covered from the talons to the heel, with a thick hard skin of a brown red colour: this skin was marked with many lines like those of the palm of the hand; and rises higher on the hind feet than the fore, as the animal sometimes walks erect upon them.

Each foot terminated in five claws, like those of a bear; the first was very short, the second long, the third and the fourth were of an equal length, but both longer than the second; and the fifth was a little shorter than these, but somewhat longer than the first; each of these claws terminated in a

accounts in many particulars wholly irreconcilable with each other.

The Brasilians call it the Cœti, and by some writers it has been considered as a fox, by some as a badger, and by others as a cat. The reason why Linnæus has called it a bear, is its having five claws, and the short one or thumb-claw placed on the outside; but it differs so much from a bear, both externally and internally, that the propriety of placing it in the bear class may be well doubted. It is very nimble, and climbs trees as nimbly as a monkey, running to the extremity of the branches which bend under ́ its weight. Its manner of eating is like that of a dog, holding its food, whether vegetable or animal, be tween its fore-paws.

An account of a Cat, that lived. twenty-six months without drinking. From the History of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, for the year 1753.

hooked.

The whole animal, which was very fat, weighed 16lbs. and a half. It was a female, and the uterus opened below the abdomen by a very large external aperture.

By its internal structure, it appeared to be formed both for carnivorous and granivorous food. It is found both in North and South America, from whence the skins, which are excellent furs, are sent in considerable quantities to Europe. It has been described by many writers of great authority, particularly Wormius, Ray, and Linnæus, but with such difference as makes the

Royal Academy of Inscription and Belles-Lettres, to whom the academy is indebted for several curious observations, was pleased to communicate to it this year a very singular one. Having remarked how cats often habituate themselves, and oftener than one could wish, to dry warrens, where they certainly cannot find drink but very seldom, he fancied that these animals could do for a very long time without drinking. To see whether his notions were well grounded, he made an experiment on a very large and fat castrated cat he had at his disposal. He began by retrenching by little and little

his

his drink, and, at last, debarred him of it entirely, yet fed him as usual with boiled meat. The cat had not drank for seven months, when this observation was communicated to the academy, and has since passed nineteen without drinking. The animal was not less well in health, nor less fat: it only seemed that it eat less than before, probably because digestion was somewhat slower. The excrements were more firm and dry,which were not evacuated but every second day, tho' urine came forth six or seven times during the same time. The cat appeared to have an ardent desire to drink, and used his best endeavours to testify the same to Mr. Fontenu, especially when he saw a pot of water in his hand. He licked greedily the mug, the glass, iron, in short, every thing that could procure for his tongue the sensation of coolness; but it does not appear in the least that his health suffered any alteration by so severe and so longa want of all sorts of drink. It may be inferred from hence, that cats inay support thirst for a considerable time, without risque of madness or other fatal accidents. According to M. de Fontenu's remark, these perhaps are not the only animals that enjoy this faculty, and this observation might lead perhaps to more important objects.

monstrous dog; which is the only instance that has come to my knowledge of the force of imagination upon quadrupeds; and, therefore, I have sent you an abstract of the memoir in which it is contained. Your's, &c. P. P.

"A citizen of Berlin had a very little female lap-dog, which ran about a back yard belonging to the house, where the citizen kept some poultry. It happened, that, when the creature was pregnant, there was in this yard, among the fowls, a turkey-cock; the turkey-cock upon the little dog's coming into the yard as usual, ran after it, stretching out his neck, making his noise, and striking at it with his beak; this was often repeated, the dog always running away greatly terrified. The poor persecuted aninial some time afterwards produced a puppy, which had a head greatly resembling that of its enemy the turkey-cock, not only in its external appearance, but in the very bones themselves; the rest of the body was that of a dog, perfect and in its natural state. This monster died soon after its birth,and was dissected by an eminent surgeon of Berlin, by whom the skeleton is still preserved. The figure of the head was a kind of oval, without either mouth or nose, and consequently the long chaps of a dog were entirely wanting; in the stead of these there was a kind of pendeloch, or bob of red flesh, perfectly resembling, both in its figure and size, the red gills of a turkey-cock. The diameter of this fleshy excrescence towards its base, was about nine lines, but it was hollow within, to receive a kind of beak, or rather a boney hook, which was perfectly

solid,

solid, without any aperture, and measured about four lines in diameter, and twelve in length. This hook was not fastened to the bone of the forehead, but to the temporal bones, by a kind of suture, in the place where these two bones join, near the base of the pericrane, in which there were not the least traces of orbits, so that eyes were totally wanting; two ears, however, appeared at the lower part of the head, near the commencement of the neck; they were surrounded by a kind of unshapely chin, full of little red knobs, like those of a turkey-cock; the little ears, which were of the same colour, were bald, and the aperture pierced the bore near the base of the cranium, which was supported by eight little vertebræ, instead of six; the usual number in a dog's neck. The uppermost of these vertebræ, was something larger and thicker than the

rest.

This fact is related by M. Eller, who takes this opportunity to explode the notion, that the force of imagination in the mother can impress any mark upon the embryo, or mutilate or deform it. Our knowledge of nature is in general so superficial and imperfect, that it is scarce ever difficult to raise objections, which it is impossible to remove. It is easy to object against what is but imperfectly understood, and often the objection rises from the imperfection of our knowledge; but to remove the objection, the subject must be understood perfectly; and therefore it is no wonder that among beings who understand nothing perfectly, or at least, whose knowledge extends very little farther than phænomena and effects, objections should stand unremoved

against all the causes that human wit has been able to assign for facts which are too notorious to be denied. M. Eller is one of the unfortunate philosophers who has shewn the paucity of his knowledge, both by his objections to the opinion he would remove, and his reasons for that he would establish.

Imagination, says he, is nothing more than that operation of a thinking being, which represents in it the image or idea of absent objects which have been before introduced by the organs of sense. Imagination can operate only by the nerves, and the imagination of the mother cannot affect the infant, because the nerves of the mother have no connection with those of the infant; the connection between the mother and infant subsisting only by means of the placenta, which adheres to the womb, not by the continuity but the continuity only of its vessels, which are not broken, when the placenta is separated from the matrix, and because there is no continuity, or anastamosis, even between the blood-vessels of the mother and the foetus, and consequently, no circulation common to the mother and infant, tho' it is confessed that the innumerable vessels which are distributed over the placenta do, in their minute ramifications, mingle with those of the matrix, and like the fibres of the roots of vegetables, may imbibe the blood that exudes from the extremities of the arteries of the matrix, as the little veins of the matrix may in their turn re-absorb the blood which the arteries of the umbilical chord of the placenta convey from the infant towards the womb.

But, if imagination can operate only

only by the nerves, can this author shew how the images of sensible objects, after he has traced them to the brain, are communicated to the mind? Is there any continuity, or anastomasis, between the mind and the brain? Or, supposing all to be mere matter, can he tell us how mere motion can make mere matter conscious? If he finds this impossible, will he therefore deny that there are conscious beings percipient of ideas from sensible objects? If in one instance, he is compelled to admit a fact, for which he cannot account, why should he, in another, deny a fact merely because he has attempted to account for it without success?

It is as well known as any fact can be, that there is very often a striking correspondence between some mark or defect in the infant, and some strong imagination or passion of the mother; such a correspondence as persuaded every one to believe that they were cause and effect, till the pride of philosophy affected to disbelieve it, because it could not trace one into the other.

It would, however, be an act of unpardonable injustice to M. Eller, to suppress the ingenious hypothesis which he has invented, to solve the difficulties with which others have been embarrassed on this subject.

He considers the infant as liable to receive cutaneous stains, or marks, and to become monstrous either by defect or excess.

The cutaneous marks he supposes to be caused either by a compression of the veins of the infant, arising from some fault in the position of the womb, by some violence from without, or by some constriction within, which prevents an equal circulation, and converts the lateral

lymphatic arteries into blood ves sels, the ramifications of which being spread under the epidermis, gives a red colour to the skin. The similitude of these spots to any thing which the mother is known to have desired, with a species of longing peculiar to the state of pregnancy, or to any thing which has alarmed or terrified her, such as plums, grapes, apples, currants, mice, and the like, he supposes to be merely fanciful and arbitrary.

To account for monsters by defect, he supposes they are the consequence of a fright, caused by a fire, by thieves, by some frightful animal, or other circumstances of danger, which, producing a violent agitation in the mother, with spasms in the womb; these spasms being attended with constrictions, may obstruct the passage of the blood in the extremities of the infant, and the part thus deprived of its nourishment will necessarily perish. He does not, however, vouchsafe to tell us, why a fright conceived at seeing a hand or leg cut off, or wounded, causes such a particular spasmodic constriction in the womb as affects the hand or arm of the infant, rather than the leg or foot; or why, if the object of fear affected a foot or leg, the spasmodic constriction becomes such as mutilates those parts of the infant, and not the hand or arm; yet this is known by universal experience to be the fact.

To account for the formation of monsters by excess, he seems to have made a very extraordinary use of some new notions of Mr. Buffon concerning generation. M. Buffon supposes that the little moving parts, which others have supposed to be animalcula in the seminal

fluid,