BRODERIP'S NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. * THIS reprint of a series
of papers, originally published in Fraser's Magazine, differs from various works on similar subjects that have been lately published. It is not founded on observations of nature conjoined with the adventures of the sportsman or observer, but is mostly limited to remarks made on wild animals in menageries, or as pets, intermingled with matter of a very singular kind derived from books. In addition to the scientific knowledge of a natural- ist, and a close observation of the various creatures exhibited in the Zoological Gardens, Mr. Broderip possesses a large stock of curious reading in relation to natural history. He is familiar with the tales of wonder that classical times invented and classical men recorded ; he is equally at home in the black-letter miracles of the middle ages, when monsters as monstrous as any in heraldry were devoutly believed in ; and he is well acquainted with the principal modern writers, whether soientific naturalists like Cuvier, or sportsmen travellers like Mr. Cumming the lion-killer. Mr. Brode- rip's knowledge is also well digested, and he has the skill to use it. He quotes his curious or illustrative matter aptly, and com- bines the result of his observation and reading into an agreeable and finished series of essays on some of the most interesting facts and fables of natural history. Besides learning, living knowledge, and ability, the author has ft good deal of literary art. He introduces as topics for his pen those subjects from the Zoological Gardens which have the most cur- rent interest, and presents his matter of all kinds with spirit and practised skill. In point of writing; and that without overdoing, we know of no naturalist who is equal to him. In spite of all his excellences, however, there is some want of fresh feeling in the Note-book. Trained observation, scientific knowledge, the well- selected results of extensive reading, and an easy animated pen over which its holder has a thorough mastery, are present ; but we miss the delightful freshness of Nature, with her pleasure-giving breezes, her various landscapes serving as backgrounds to the figures, her changing skies and weathers always pleasant to read about, and the numerous little incidents her student ever en- counters in his pursuit. The house may be all that is desirable ; wealth, taste, art may have done all that is proper ; but after a while we feel the confinement, and gladly escape from closeness and comfort to the open air.
The papers are on a great variety of subjects. Mr. Broderip had a pet beaver, of which he gives an interesting account to start with. The condor and the modern romances connected with it are considered. The young hippopotamus, before and after its arrival, and on its removal to his own abode, are described, as well as the most remarkable facts collected about the animal in ancient and modern times. The interest of the subject and the appearance of the snake-charmers occasion elaborate essays on the poison of serpents, and the power of snake fascination, with a description of what the author saw at the exhibition of the charmers; the final conclusion in this particular case being, that the wonder vanished on close examination—the poison-fangs were drawn. The turtle and tortoises in the Gardens give occasion to a sketch of their doings, an account of their natural history, and notices of their introduction to the pot. The camel not only involves its history and use, but some Oriental pictures of the desert and its caravans. The cameleon furnishes a thoroughly well digested paper on its power of changing colour and living on air. Besides these principal topics, there are many others, in which old and middle-aged fables, modern facts, and the author's own observations, are brought to bear upon the case in question.
As an example of the manner of treating a fable, we may quote the account of a bird which really seems to merit all that has-been said of it; for, often as its existence has been put an end to, it still flourishes before our eyes.
"Open a volume of natural history, the older the better, and the African marvellous forms throw all the others into shade. Did not the phoenix live there, and make its appearance among the Heliopolitans only once in five hundred years ? He came, on the death of his sire, in shape and size like an eagle, with his glorious parti-coloured wings of golden hue set off with red, dutifully bearing from Arabia the body of his father to his burial-place in the temple of the Sun, and there piously deposited the paternal corpse in the tomb.
"But how did the phoenix carry him to the grave?—as the kite carried Cock Robin, I suppose ?
"No, madam ; he brought his revered deceased parent in this manner. He first formed a large egg of myrrh, and then having by trial ascertained that he could carry it, he hollowed out the artificial egg, put his parent into it; stopped up the hole through which he had introduced the body with more myrrh, so that the weight was the same as the solid egg of myrrh, and per- formed the funeral in Egypt. "If you would see the manner of his death, turn to the 'Portraits nyseaux, Animaux, Serpens, Herbes, Arbres, Hommes et Femmes d'Arabie et Egypte, observez par P. Belon du Mans' : and there you will behold 'Le Phoenix selon quo le vulgaire a costume de Is portrsire, on his fiery funeral pile, gazing at a noon-day radiant sun with as good eyes, nose, and mouth, as ever appeared over mine host's door, with the following choice morsel of poetry- * Leaves from the Note-book of a Naturalist. By W. J. Broderlp, Esq., PIM, &c. &c., Author of " Zoological Recreations," &c. Published by Parker Rill Son.
' Oh du phoenix la divine excellence!
Ayant veer%) seal Sept cens soixante ens,
11 meurt dessus des ramees d'ancens : Et de sa cendre un autre prend naissance.
"It is to be hoped, for the sake of the son, that this is the correct version. The carriage of ashes from Arabia to Egypt, wrapped up in myrrh, is a very different task from the porterage of a dead body thence and thither. "Some, again, declare that the bird never died at all; but that when age `clawed him in his cluteh; and he found himself not quite so jaunty as in the vaward of his youth, he collected the choicest perfumed woods of Araby the Blest, waited patiently for fire from heaven to kindle the `spicy' pile, burnt away what we have heard termed 'his old particles,' and came forth as if he had drunk of the renovating elixir of life. "But what right had the phoenix to such pleasant immortality ? "Because he never ate the forbidden fruit."
The subject of turtles introduces an account of some experi- ments upon them, followed by some speculations on the agony of death.
"Redi proved the enduring vitality of these reptiles by a more decisive experiment. In the month of November he cut off the head of a large tor- toise; the headless animal did not expire till twenty-three days had elapsed. This decapitated existent did not, indeed, move about like those which had only been robbed of their brain; but when any mechanical stimulus, such as pricking or poking, was applied to the anterior or posterior extremities, the headless trunk drew them up with considerable liveliness, and exhibited many other motions. To free himself from all doubt as to the vitality of these animals under such circumstances, Redi cut off the heads of four other tortoises. Twelve days after decapitation he opened two of them, when he beheld the heart heating, and saw the blood enter and leave it. "These were Redi's experiments : for them ho is answerable. But it is only just to remark, that in this frightful state of life in death there may be more of irritability than sensation. • • • "That such post-decapitation snaps and motions should raise horrible ideas of comparison is hardly to be wondered at ; and I remember this instance of the vitality of the turtle's head being brought forward in corroboration of the sickening story of the blush on Charlotte Corday's face, when the brutal exe- cutioner struck it on the cheek as he held up the severed head to the execra- tion of the friends of the imp Marat, the idol of the canaille that surrounded the guillotine. A friend witnessed an execution in Italy by an instrument
,..iii,08
resembling the Scottish maiden. He was very near he scene of death, and when the criminal's head was held up, he saw the. roll from right to left and from left to right. Those best qualified to • ridge are of opinion that this and similar movements are merely convulsip, and that the severed head does not feel. To say nothing of the stunning shock to the nervous system, more especially if the ponderous trenchant axe falls upon the occi- put, as it did in the case of the unfortunate Louis XVI, whose under-jaw was said to have been loft on the trunk, either from his shrinkingjust be- fore the fatal moment, or the shortness of his neck,—the blood-vessels of the brain must be so speedily emptied when a person suffers death by the guillo- tine, that all sensation must vanish in a very short space of time : but it is very far from clear that the head does not continue to live during that short space; and if it feels even for a moment or two, who shall say that in those moments it may not suffer an eternity of agony and shame. It has been hinted, that during that diabolical French carnival, when terror reigned su- preme, and fraternity—the fraternity of Cain and his brother—had reached its culminating point, observations were made on the newly-severed heads that gave evidence of action, if not of feeling, after their separation from the bodies of the victims of the Revolutionary tribunal."
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