Vestiges of the Natural History of CreationChambers, Robert
Science
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Chambers, Robert
Creation; Evolution (Biology)
Here man is put into the typical place, as the genuine head, not only of
this order, but of the whole animal world. The double affinity which is
requisite is obtained, for here he has the simiadæ on one hand, and the
cebidæ on the other. The five tribes of the order are completed, the
vespertilionidæ being shifted (provisionally) into the natatorial place,
for which their appropriateness is so far evidenced by the aquatic habits
of several of the tribe, and the lemuridæ into the suctorial, to which
their length of muzzle and remarkable saltatory power are highly
suitable. At the same time, the simiadæ are degraded from the typical
place, to which they have no sort of pretension, and placed where their
mean and mischievous character seem to require; the cebidæ again being
assigned that situation which their comparatively inoffensive
dispositions, their arboreal habits, and their extraordinary development
of the tail, (which with them is like a fifth hand,) render so proper.
The zoological status thus assigned to the human race is precisely what
might be expected. In order to understand its full value, it is
necessary to observe how the various type peculiarities operate in fixing
the character of the animals ranked in them. It is easy to conceive that
they must be, in some instances, much mixed up with each other, and
consequently obscured. If an animal, for example, is the suctorial
member of a circle of species, forming the natatorial type of genera,
forming a family or sub-family which in its turn is rasorial, its
qualities must evidently be greatly mingled and ill to define. But, on
the other hand, if we take the rapacious or sub-typical group of birds,
and look in it for the tribe which is again the rapacious or sub-typical
group of its order, we may expect to find the qualities of that group
exalted or intensified, and accordingly made the more conspicuous. Such
is really the case with the vultures, in the rapacious birds, a family
remarkable above all of their order for their carnivorous and foul
habits. So, also, if we take the typical group of the birds, the
incessores or perchers, and look in it for its typical group, the
conirostres, and seek there again for the typical family of that group,
the corvidæ, we may expect to find a very marked superiority in
organization and character. Such is really the case. “The crow,” says
Mr. Swainson, “unites in itself a greater number of properties than are
to be found individually in any other genus of birds; as if in fact it
had taken from all the other orders a portion of their peculiar
qualities, for the purpose of exhibiting in what manner they could be
combined. From the rapacious birds this “type of types,” as the crow has
been justly called, takes the power of soaring in the air, and of seizing
upon living birds, like the hawks, while its habit of devouring putrid
substances, and picking out the eyes of young animals, is borrowed from
the vultures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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