thickness, inclosing a frame or skeleton of bones, acted upon by a system of muscles and tendons, which are put in motion by nerves communicating with the organ of sense and the will of the animal.

They have blood, for Life; bones, for Strength; muscles, for Motion; and nerves, for Sensation.

494. Linnæus divides mammalious animals, or those which suckle their young, into even orders; which are chiefly regulated by the number and situation of the teeth.

a. Primates, or animals having two canine and four cutting teeth, and furnished with two pectoral teats. To this class belong man, the ape, the maucauco, and the bat.

b. Bruta, or animals which have no cutting teeth in either jaw; as the elephant, the sloth, the ant-eater, &c.

c. Feræ, or animals whose cutting teeth vary from ten, to two. This order includes most of the formidable rapacious quadrupeds: as the lion, the tiger, the bear, &c.

d. Glires, or animals which have only two cutting and no canine teeth; as the hare kind, the mouse, the squirrel, &c.

e. Pecora, or animals which are hoofed, and have no cutting teeth in the upper jaw, including the camel, the deer, the sheep, the ox kind, &c.

f. Belluce, or quadrupeds with cutting teeth in each jaw, as the horse, the boar, &c.

g. Cetæ, or animals whose teeth greatly vary in different genera. This order comprehends all the whale tribes; which, from certain similarities of structure, are arranged under the class of quadrupeds.

495. Birds, the second class, constituting those covered with feathers, have two wings to fly with, a tail to direct their flight, and a hard bony bill. Their bones are hollow and light; and they are, in every respect, made for making their way through the air

with the least resistance. Many tribes migrate, at certain seasons, from one country to another, and no less than nineteen tribes arrive in England in the spring, and leave us in the autumn; and ten other arrive in autumn and leave us in the spring..

It wins my admiration

To view the structure of that little work--
A bird's nest. Mark it well within, without;
No tool had he that wrought; no knife to cut;
No nail to fix; no bodkin to insert;

No glue to join: his little beak was all;
And yet how neatly finished! What nice hand
With every implement and means of art,
And twenty year's apprenticeship to boot,
Cou'd make me such another? Fondly, then,
We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill
Instinctive genius foils.

496. There are six orders of birds:

HURDIS.

1. The Accipitres, or rapacious kinds; as condors, vultures, eagles, and hawks.

&c.

2. Pica, or the pye-kind; as parrots, ravens, crows,

3. Censores, or the duck kind; as the swan, goose,

&c.

&c.

4. Gralla, or the crane kind; as storks, flamingoes,

5. Gallina, or the poultry kind; as peacocks, turkeys, partridges, &c.

And 6. Passeres, or the sparrow kind; as pigeons, larks, blackbirds, nightingales, swallows, &c. But who the various nations can declare

That plough with busy wing the peopled air?
These, cleave the crumbling bark for insect food;
Those, dip the crooked beak in kindred blood;
Some, haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods;
Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods;
Some, fly to man, his household gods implore,
And gather round his hospitable door,
Wait the known call, and find protection there
From all the lesser tyrants of the air.
The tawny eagle seats his callow brood

High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood.

BARBAULD.

497. The third class is constituted of Amphibia. These have a naked or scaly body, pointed teeth, no fins.

There are four orders:

and

1. Reptiles; as the crocodile, tortoise, lizard, frog, &c.

2. Serpenis; as the rattle snake, boa constrictor, viper, &c.; some of which are harmless.

3. Meantes; as the siren.

4. Nantes; as torpedoes, sharks, &e.

498. The fourth class of animated beings, are fishes; the inhabitants of a different element from man, but not less wonderful in their organization, nor less various in their forms and habits than the other classes.

Many hundred species of fishes, which reside in the unfathomable depths of the ocean, are doubtless unknown to man; and he knows little of the real habits and economy even of those which are most familiar to him.

Obs. The eye can reach but a very short way into the depths of the sea; and that only when its surface is glassy and serene. In many seas, it perceives nothing but a bright sandy plain at bottom, extending for several hundred miles, without an intervening object. But, in others, particularly in the Red sea, it is very different; the whole body of this extensive bed of water is, literally speaking, a forest of submarine plants, and corals formed by insects for their habitation, sometimes branching out to a great extent. Here are seen the madrepores, the sponges, mosses, sea-mushrooms, and other marine productions, covering every part of the bottom. The bed of many parts of the sea near America, presents a very different, though a very beautiful appearance, being covered with vegetables, which make it look as green as a meadow; and beneath are seen thousands of turtles, and other sea-animals, feeding.

2.-"Were it not (says Hawkins) for the moving of the sea, by the force of winds, tides and currents, it would corrupt into life! An experiment of this I saw, when lying with a fleet about the islands of Azores, almost six months; the greater part of which time we were becalmed. Upon which, all the sea became so replenished with various sorts of jellies, and forms of serpents, adders, and snakes, as seemed won

derful; some green, some black, some yellow, some white, some of divers colours, and many of them had life; and some there were a yard and a half, and two yards long; which, had I not seen, I could hardly have believed. And hereof were witnesses all the companies of the ships which were then present; so that a man could hardly draw a bucket of water clear of some corruption." Mr. Boyle was also assured by one of his acquaintance, who had been becalmed for about fourteen days, in the Indian ocean, that the water, for want of motion, began to stink with life; and that, had the calm continued much longer, the stench would probably have poisoned him. These assertions may be supported by our knowledge that animal food left to corrupt, will engender life.

499. Fishes are divided into four orders:

. 1. Apodes; such as have no ventrical fins, as eels, congars, &c.

2. Jugulares; such as have the ventral fins placed before the pectoral, as cod, &c.

3. Thoracici; those that inspirate by the gills only, as the perch, &c.

And, 4. Abdominales; those having ventral fins behind the pectoral in the abdomen, as pike, salmon, &c.

500. Insects, the fifth class of animated beings, are, in many respects, the most entitled to our wonder and attention, on account of the amazing variety of their forms and habits.

Those animalcula, of which a thousand may dance on the point of a needle, are as curiously, as beautifully, and as perfectly formed, as the largest animals in

nature.

Myriads of creatures (each too nicely small
Bare sense to reach) for thy inspection call,
In animalcules, germs, seeds, and flow'rs,
Live, in their perfect shapes, the little pow'rs.
Vast trees lie pictured in their slend'rest grains :
Armies one wat'ry globule contains.
Some, so minute, that, to their fine extreme,
The mite a vast leviathan will seem-
That yet, of organs, functions, sense partake,
Equal with animals of largest make ;

THOMSON.

In curious limbs and clothing they surpass, By far, the comliest of the bulky mass. Obs.-Insects are small in our eyes but not so to the CREATOR, who views infinity itself at a glance; and, compared with infinity, an emmet is as large as the solar system.Largeness and smallness are terms as relative as up or down.

501. Insects, viewed through a microscope, would teach children to respect their lives and happiness, and never, in wantonness, to destroy the most apparently insignificant. The child who treads upon a worm, or destroys a fly in sport, gives indication of a wicked, cruel, or thoughtless mind.

The poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal suff'rance, feels as great a pang
As when the giant dies.

SHAKSPEARE.

Obs.-The influence of kind treatment on the fiercest animals, is beautifully described by Pratt, in his " Lower World." Kindness can woo the lion from his den

(A moral lesson to the sons of men!)
His mighty heart in silken bonds can draw;
And bend his nature to sweet Pity's law.
Kindness can lure the eagle from her nest,

Midst sun-beams plac'd, content with man to rest :
Can make the elephant, whose bulk supplies
The warrior-tower, compassionate, as wise :
Make the fell tygress (from her chain unbound,
Herself unfed, her craving offspring round,)
Forget the force of hunger and of blood,
Meekly receive from man her long-wish'd food:
Take too the chastisement, and (if 'tis just,)
Submissive take it, crouching to the dust.
Kindness can habits, nay, the nature change,
Of all who swim the deep, or forests range :
And for the mild, domestic train, who come,
The dog-the steed-with thee to find a home:
Gladly they serve thee; serve thee better too,
When only happy beings meet their view:
Ah! then, let gentler accents, gentler looks supply
The thunders of thy voice, the lightnings of thine eye..
502. The class of insects is divided into seven or-
ders, viz.

a. Coleoptera, or insects having four wings: the two superior ones being crustacious, and furnished with a straight suture.