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METHODS OF STUD!
,A 4
NATURAL HISTORY
BY L. AGASSIZ
BOSTON:
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.,
SUCCESSORS TO TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
1869.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the yeaf 1863, by
FIFTH EDITION.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
CAMBRIDGE.
PREFACE.
L. AGASSIZ.
NAHANT, August 22, 1863.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
NOMENCLATURE AND CLASSIFICATION 15
CHAPTER III.
CATEGORIES OF CLASSIFICATION...... 80
CHAPTER IV.
CLASSIFICATION ......
AND CREATION 41
CHAPTER V.
DIFFERENT VIEWS RESPECTING ORDE&B . . 72
CHAPTER VI.
GRADATION AMONG ANIMALS ....... 84
CHAPTER VII.
ANALOGOUS TYPES 108
CHAPTER VIII.
FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS 109
V1U CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CHARACTERS OF GENERA . 126
CHAPTER X.
SPECIES AND BREEDS 134
CHAPTER XI.
FORMATION OF CORAL REEFS 148
CHAPTER XII.
AGE OF CORAL REEFS AS SHOWING PERMANENCE OF SPECIES 175
CHAPTER XIII.
ROMOLOGIES 201
CHAPTER XIV.
ALTERNATE GENERATIONS 283
|
CHAPTER XV.
THE OVARIAN EGG 269
CHAPTER XVI.
EMBRYOLOGY AND CLASSIFICATION 296
METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL
HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
History.
Linnaeus devised such a system, and to him
we owe a most simple and comprehensive scien-
tific mode of designating animals and plants.
Radiates, Peripherie,
Mollusks, Massive,
Articulates, Longitudinal,
Vertebrates. Doubly Symmetrical.
CHAPTER III.
CATEGORIES OF CLASSIFICATION.
CHAPTER IY.
founded.
I have said that the Radiates are the lowest
type among animals, embodying, under an infinite
variety of forms, that plan in which all parts bear
definite relations to a vertical central axis. The
three classes of Radiates are distinguished from
each other by three distinct ways of executing
that plan. I dwell upon this point ; for we shall
never arrive at a clear understanding of the dif-
ferent significance and value of the various
divisions of the Animal Kingdom, till we appre-
between the structural con-
ciate the distinction
tacles ; s, inner sac or stomach ; &, main cavity ff, reproductive organs
; 5
g, radiating partition ;
e e e, radiating chambers c c, circular openings
;
in the partitions ;
a a, lower floor. The tentacles are drawn in.
Acalephs ;
and here the same plan is carried out
type of Mollusks ;
others to the type of Articu-
name ;
since it has no relation or resemblance to
a foot, though it is used as a locomotive organ.
This class includes all the Snails, Slugs, Cockles,
CLASSIFICATION AND CREATION. 57
a
Limpet, Patella, cut transversely, a, foot; ft, gills; c, mantle; d, shell;
c, heart; /, main cavity, with intestines.
a
Common Squid, Loligo, cut transversely a, foot or siphon ; b, gills ; c, man-
:
offspring.
I afterwards unwound the mass of eggs, which,
when coiled up as I first saw it, made a roll of
white substance about the size of a coffee-bean,
and found that it consisted of a string of eggs,
measuring more than twelve feet in length, the
eggs being held together by some gelatinous
substance that cemented them and prevented
them from falling apart. Cutting this string
across, and placing a small section under the
microscope, I counted on one surface of such a
cut from seventy to seventy-five eggs ; and, esti-
mating the entire number of eggs according to
CLASSIFICATION AND CREATION. 65
representatives.
What now are the different modes of express-
ing this structural plan that lead us to associate
certain Vertebrates together in distinct classes ?
he and be Verte-
will, abjure his better nature
brate more than Man. He may sink as low as the
lowest of his type, or he may rise to a spiritual
height that will make that which distinguishes
him from the rest far more the controlling ele-
ment of his being than that which unites him
with them.
MEANING OF ORDERS.
CHAPTER Y.
clings to us ;
and where the different phases of
the same life assume such different external
forms, we are apt to overlook the fact that it is one
vestigations.
This famous classification was founded upon
80 MEANING OF OHDERS.
lopoda.
The Articulates are the respiratory animals in
this classification :
they represent respiration.
The Worms, breathing, as he asserts, through the
whole surface of the skin, without special breath-
ing organs, are the lowest the Crustacea, with
;
CHAPTER VI.
Mammalia.
type.
There is still another aspect of this question,
that of time. If neither the gradation of
structural rank among adult animals nor the
says this :
that, in the Silurian period, taken in
itsmost comprehensive sense, the first in which
organic life is found at all, there were the three
classes of Radiates, the three classes of Mollusks,
two of the classes of Articulates, and one class of
Vertebrates. In other words, at the dawn of life
on earth, the plan of the animal creation with its
four fundamental ideas was laid out, Radiates,
Mollusks, Articulates, and Vertebrates were pres-
ent at that first representation of life upon our
globe. If, all the primary types appeared
then,
simultaneously, one cannot have grown out of
another, they could not be at once contempo-
raries and descendants of each other.
The diagram on the opposite page represents
the geological periods in their regular succession,
and the approximate time at which all the types
and all the classes of the Animal Kingdom were
introduced ;
for there is some doubt as to the
still
E
96 GRADATION AMONG ANIMALS.
CHAPTER VII.
ANALOGOUS TYPES.
CHAPTER VIII.
FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS.
those gen-
plants that naturalists first perceived
eral traits of resemblance existing everywhere
H
114 FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS.
ence of Families.
There is a chapter in the Natural History of
Animals that has hardly been touched upon as
yet, and that will be especially interesting
with
reference to Families. The voices of animals have
a family character not to be mistaken. All the
Canidse bark and howl the
:
Fox, the Wolf, the
Dog have the same kind of utterance, though on
a somewhat different pitch. All the Bears growl,
from the White Bear of the Arctic snows to the
small Black Bear of the Andes. All the Cats
group.
These affinities of the vocal systems among
i
beauty.
126 THE CHARACTERS OF GENERA.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
zoological system.
There isone question respecting Species that
gives rise to very earnest discussions in our day,
not only among naturalists, but among all
results.
The common sense of a civilized community
has already pointed out the true distinction, in
applying another word to the discrimination of
the different kinds of domesticated animals.
They are called Breeds, and Breeds among ani-
mals are the work of man : Species were created
by God.
148 FORMATION OF CORAL REEFS.
CHAPTER XI.
degree of pressure ;
and this fact has, as we shall
by millions ;
and I have myself counted no less
than fourteen millions of individuals in a Coral
mass of Porites measuring not more than twelve
feet in diameter. The so-called Coral heads,
in such acommunity.
Thus firmly and strongly is the foundation of
the reef laid by the Astraeans ; but we have seen
that for their prosperous growth they require a
certain depth and pressure of water, and when
they have brought the wall so high that they have
not more than six fathoms of water above them,
this kind of Coral ceases to grow. They have,
however, prepared a fitting surface for different
kinds of Corals that could not live in the depths
from which the Astraeans have come, but find
their genial home nearer the surface such a ;
,1
Mm
ewe $
$<^a
mm
VMr< c?
^ti ^; /,
CHAPTER XII.
growth.
176 AGE OF COEAL REEFS.
PENINSULA
OF
EL.O R
larger trees
grow all kinds
of trailing vines,
ferns, and mosses, wild-flowers, and low shrubs,
filling the spaces between them with a thick un-
derbrush. The Coral Reef also has its under-
brush of the lighter, branching, more brittle
kinds, filling its interstices, and fringing the sum-
8* i,
178 AGE OF CORAL EEEFS.
with -its
present state would justify this conclu-
sion. But, allowing a wide margin for inaccu-
racy of observation or for any circumstances that
might accelerate the growth, and leaving out of
consideration the decay of the soft parts and the
comminution of the brittle ones, which would
subtract so largely from the actual rate of growth,
let us double this estimate and call the average
increase a foot for every century. In so doing,
we are no doubt greatly overrating the rapidity
of the progress, and our calculation of the period
that must have elapsed in the formation of the
Reef will be far within the truth.
The outer Reef, still incomplete, as I have
stated,and therefore of course somewhat lower
than the inner one, measures about seventy feet
in height. Allowing a foot of growth for every
century, not less than seven thousand years must
following order :
196 AGE OF CORAL EEEFS.
STRUCTURAL SERIES.
HALCYONOIDS: eight tentacles in pairs, lobed around the margin,
always combined in large communities, some of which are free
and movable like single animals.
MADREPORES: twelve tentacles, alternating in six larger and six
smaller ones; frequently a larger top animal standing prominent
in the whole community, or on the summit of its branches.
GEOLOGICAL SUCCESSION.
Present, Halcyonoids.
Pliocene, "|
Miocene, f Madrepores.
Eocene,
Cretaceous,
T . Pontes
Jurassic,
. .
rr,
Triassic,
. Astraeans.
Permian,
Carboniferous, "^
Devonian, r Fungidae.
Silurian,
AGE OF CORAL REEFS. 197
JEIalcyonoids. ..
.Madrepores.
Maeandrines.
"Astrseans.
they, like all low forms, are single, and not con-
fined to one level, having a wider range in depth
198 AGE OF CORAL REEFS.
CHAPTER XIII.
HOMOLOGIES.
gible sentence ;
facts are the words of God, and we
may heap them together endlessly, but they will
teach us little or nothing till we place them in
their true relations, and recognize the thought
that binds them together as a consistent whole.
I have spoken of the plans that lie at the
foundation of all the variety Animal
of the
- '
f
1
*st-
:
R
Sea-Urchin seen from the oral side, showing the zones with the spines and
the suckers for the ab-oral side, on the summit of which the zones unite, see
;
the wood-cut on the next page, which shows a portion of that region.
perforated with
regular holes, and rows of
through these perforations pass the suckers or
Portion of Sea-Urchin representing one narrow zone with a part of the broad
zones on either side and the ab-oral area on the summit.
crowning work.
222 HOMOLOGIES.
Holothurian.
CHAPTER XIY.
ALTERNATE GENEEATIONS.
general.
There is no more interesting series of trans-
formations than that of the development of Ra-
diates. They are all born as little transparent
globular bodies, covered with vibratile cilia,
rapidly, and is
undergone within the egg ; but,
at whatever time and under whatever conditions
it occurs, it forms a necessary part of their devel-
opment, and shows that all these animals have
one and the same pattern of growth.
This difference in the relative importance and
duration of certain phases of growth is by no
ALTERNATE GENERATIONS. 237
Single head or branch of Coryne mirabilis, magnified, with two Medusa buds.
Scyphostoma of Aurelia flaviclula, the white Jelly-Fish with a rosy cross, com-
mon along the coasts of New England.
m>
e.
Aurelia flavidula, the common white Jelly-Fish of our sea-shores, seen from
above c, mouth ; e e e ee e, eyes 77?
-.
; mm m, lobes or curtain of the mouth
in outlines;
o o o, ovaries ; tt t, tentacles ; w w, ramified tubes.
animal. On
the upper side of the body, but
more ;
and at this time they prefer the sunniest
exposures, and
like to bask in the light and
warmth. They assume every variety of attitude,
but move always by the regular contraction and
expansion of the disk, which rises and falls with
rhythmical alternations, the average number of
these movements being from twelve to fifteen in
a minute. There can be no doubt that they
perceive what is going on about them, and are
Idyia roseola ;
one of our Ctenophorse :
a, anal aperture ; ft, radiating tube ;
-
THE OVARIAN EGG. 269
CHAPTER XV.
THE OVARIAN EGG.
kindred topics ;
but I allude to it here, before
ysis ;
it is the first indication of the immaterial
is expressed.
The first change in the yolk after the formation
of the Purkinjean vesicle is the appearance of
minute dots near the wall at the side opposite the
vesicle. These increase in number and size, but
remain always on that half of the yolk, leaving
the other half of the globe clear. One can hardly
conceive the beauty of the egg as seen through
the microscope at this period of its growth, when
the whole yolk is divided, with the dark granules
on one side ;
while the other side, where the
transparent halo of the vesicle is seen, is brilliant
with light. With the growth of the egg these
granules enlarge, become more distinct, and un-
der the microscope some of them appear to be
hollow. They are not round in form, but rather
288 THE OVARIAN EGG.
and the dark bodies, which have been till now the
ferent layers.
CHAPTER XVI.
EMBRYOLOGY AND CLASSIFICATION.
THE
investigation of the structure and gradual
growth of the ovarian egg is so laborious that
it will be many years before we can hope to
have a complete picture of all its phases. The
apparatus required for the task is very compli-
cated, and a long training is
necessary merely
to prepare the student for the use of his instru-
ments. A
superficial familiarity with the mi-
croscope gives no idea of the exhausting kind
of labor which the naturalist must undergo
who would make an intimate microscopic study
of these minute living spheres. The glance at
the moon, or at Jupiter's satellites, which the
chance visitor at an observatory is allowed to
take through the gigantic telescope, reveals to
him nothing of the intense concentrated watch-
ing by which the observer wins his higher re-
ward. The nightly vision of the astronomer,
revealing myriad worlds in the vague nebulous
spaces of heaven, is not for him he must take
;
development. Johannes
Miiller, one of the most
eminent investigators of modern times, in a long
series of memorable papers upon the Embryology
of Radiates, has maintained that the larval con-
dition of the young Echinoderm, so far from being
* Let any one who doubts the truth of this statement as re-
gards thehuman embryo compare the figures of the latter, pub-
lished by Ecker, in the Icones Physiologicce, with any adult Skate.
318 EMBEYOLOGY AND CLASSIFICATION.
THE END.
Cambridge :
Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, fc Oft.