Zoology: A Systematic Account of the General Structure, Habits, Instincts, and Uses of the Principal Families of the Animal Kingdom, Volume 2

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Página 507 - The island is five miles in length, and one in breadth, and has a flat surface nearly eighty feet above the sea. On all sides, except the north, it is bounded by perpendicular cliffs about fifty feet high, composed entirely of dead coral, more or less porous, honeycombed at the surface, and hardening into a compact, calcareous substance within, possessing fracture of secondary limestone, and has a species of millepore interspersed through it.
Página 508 - Thus do we see the soft and gelatinous body of a polypus, through the agency of the vital laws, conquering the great mechanical power of the waves of an ocean which neither the art of man nor the inanimate works of nature could successfully resist.
Página 460 - Encrinites as a corn-rick is composed of straws. Man applies it to construct his palace and adorn his sepulchre ; but there are few who know, and fewer still who duly appreciate, the surprising fact, that much of this marble is composed of the skeletons of millions of...
Página 142 - Mantis religiosa, the Praying Mantis, or Soothsayer ; and is termed by the French prie-Dieu. This is regarded by the Turks as an object of superstitious veneration; and many absurd stories are on record, in regard to its habits. The peculiar attitude in question, however, is nothing else than the position in which the prey is most readily seized ; — the front of the thorax being elevated, and the two fore-legs being held up together like a pair of arms, prepared to seize any animal that may fall...
Página 495 - Pecten ma&imits (a shell-fish of the oyster family), of the size of an ordinary saucer. The shell fixed within the stomach was so placed as to divide it completely into two halves, so that the body stretched tensely over it had become thin and flattened like a pancake.
Página 483 - ... hollow which is formed by the cohesive force of the liquid, if care be taken to lay the needle down very gently on the surface. If, while the hydra is floating in this manner, suspended by the extremity of the foot, a drop of water be made to fall upon that part, so as to wet it, this hydrostatic power will be destroyed, and the animal will immediately sink to the bottom.
Página 532 - We scarcely condescend,•" observes Lamarck in reference to this fact, " to examine microscopic shells, from their insignificant size ; but we cease to think them insignificant when we reflect, that it is by means of the smallest objects that Nature everywhere produces her most remarkable and astonishing phenomena. Whatever she may seem to lose in point of volume in the production of living bodies. is amply made up by the number of the individuals, which she multiplies with admirable promptitude...
Página 550 - Polirschiefer, or polishing slate of Bilin in Bohemia, which occupies a surface of great extent, probably the site of an ancient lake, and forms slaty strata of fourteen fe"et in thickness, almost wholly composed of the silicified shields of animalcules.
Página 244 - Their habits are mostly aquatic ; but, in consequence of the manner in which their gills are inclosed, none of them are killed at once by being withdrawn from the water ; and some of them pass the greatest part of their lives in air. They are naturally voracious and carnivorous...
Página 347 - ... and precision than the modern Decapod Dibranchiata. The position of the animal was, most probably, more habitually vertical than that of its recent congeners. Thus placed, the Belemnite, in quest of prey, would rise swiftly or stealthily to infix its claws in the belly of a supernatant fish, and then dart down, and drag its prey to the bottom and devour it.

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