skinned; does not fear man; is a solitary animal, and never in company but with its female; couples in the middle of winter; the flesh not fit to be eaten; the fur has the most beautiful lustre, and preferred to all, except the Siberian fox, or the sable, ii. 363. Gnats proceed from a little worm, usually seen at the bottom of standing waters; curious manner in which the eggs are laid; in their egg state it resembles a buoy, fixed by an anchor; different states of the insect; in its last transformation, divested of a second skin, in the next it resigns its eyes, its antennæ, and its tail, and seems to expire; from the spoils of the amphibious animal appears a little winged insect, whose structure is an object of admiration; description of this insect, and of its trunk, justly deemed one of nature's masterpieces; implement with which the gnat performs its work in summer; places where it spends the winter; the little brood so numerous, that the water is tinged with the colour of the species; some gnats oviparous, others viviparous, and come forth in a perfect form; some are males and unite with the females, some are females, requiring the male, others are of neither sex, and produce young without copulation; at the sixth generation their propagation stops, the gnat no longer reproduces its likeness, but requires the male to renew its fecundity; produced in multitudes beyond expression in America, and found of all sizes, from six inches long, to a minuteness beyond the perception of the common eye; native In'dians, annointed with oil, sleep in cottages covered with thousands of gnats, and have not their slumbers interrupted by these cruel devourers, v. 178. Goat, its eyes are gray, i. 336. From Europe imported into South America soon degenerates; as it grows less, it becomes more prolific; imported to the African coast, it seems to improve, ii. 75. Goat and sheep propagate together; and may be considered as of one family; the buck-goat produces with the ewe an animal in two or three generations returning to the sheep, and retaining no marks of its ancient progenitor, 138. More fitted for a life of savage liberty than the sheep; is not easily confined to its flock, but chooses its own pasture, and loves to stray from the rest; delights in climbing precipices; is capricious and vagrant; is not terrified at storms, or incommoded by rain; immoderate cold affects it, and produces a vertigo, to which this animal is subject; proof of its being naturally the friend of man, and that it seldom resumes its forest wildness, when once reduced into the state of servitude; in some places they bear twice a-year; in warmer climates generally bring forth three, four, and five, at once: milk of goats medicinal; not apt to curdle in the stomach; flesh of the goat properly prepared, ranked by some not in ferior to venison; is never so good and so sweet, in our climate as mutton; no man can attend above fifty goats at a time; flesh of the goat found to improve between the tropics; remakable varieties in this kind; that of Natolia, by M. Buffon called goat of Angora; its description; the Assyrian goat, of Gesner; chiefly kept about Aleppo; little goat of America, the size of a kid; has hair as long as the ordinary breed; Juda goats not larger than a hare; common in Guinea, Angola, and the coast of Africa; blue goat, at the Cape of Good Hope; its description, 149. Boundaries between the goat and deer kind difficult to fix; Bezoar goat, the pasan, found in the mountains of Egypt, &c. 159. African wild goat of Grimmius, fourth anomaly of the kind; its description, 166. Goats eat four hundred and forty-nine plants, and reject a hundred and twenty-six, 227. In Syria, remarkable for their fine glossy, long, soft hair, 249. Goat-sucker, a nocturnal swallow: description and habits, iii. 403. Gobius, the gudgeon, description of this fish, iv. 208. Godwit, its dimensions, iv. 44. A bird of passage, 47. Gold never contracts rust, and why; except in places where much salt is used, i. 223. Golden-eye, bird of the duck kind, iv. 105. Goldfinch, bird of the sparrow kind, iii. 386. Learns a song from the nightingale, 403. Goose, marks of the goose kind; food: abstained from by the ancients, as indigestible, iv. 93. One known to live a hundred years, 99. Marks of the tame and wild sort: wild supposed to breed in the northern parts of Europe; flight regularly arranged, 100. Goose, (Brent) most harmless, but for their young pursue dogs and men; use of its feathers in beds unknown in countries of the Levant and Asia; feathers a considerable article of commerce; different qualities of them; the best method of curing them, iv. 101. Goose, (Soland) described, iv. 71. See Gannet. Gooseander, a round-billed water-fowl, its description; feeds upon fish, iv. 92. Goss-hawk, of the baser race of hawks, iii. 266. at game; little obtained from its efforts, 273. Taught to fly Gouan, his system of fishes deserves applause for more than its novelty; how followed in arranging the spinous class of fishes, iv. 205. Grampus, fierce and desperate in defence of its young; remarkable instance, iv. 139. Description and habits, 159. Grasshopper, differences between ours and the cicada of the ancients; great varieties of this animal in shape and colour; description of the little grasshopper that breeds plentifully in meadows, and continues chirping through the summer; the male of this tribe only vocal; how their fecundation is performed; the male or female never survive. the winter; their eggs; from first appearing, possessed of wings: how it gets rid of the outer skin; their food; places where they deposit their eggs, v. 62. Grave, the greatest care recommended not to commit those dearest to us to the grave, before real signs of certain death be ascertained, i. 416. Grebe, description of this bird; residence, and habits; perpetually diving, and very difficult to be shot; never seen on land; chiefly sought for the skin of its breast, and why; in breeding-time their breasts are bare, iv. 54. Green-finch, bird of the sparrow-kind, iii. 385. Greenland, Crantz's account of the formation of ice-mountains in that country, i. 181. Aurora borealis, its appearance almost constant in winter; the inhabitants not entirely forsaken in the midst of their tedious night, this aurora affording them light for the purposes of existence, 271; they live mostly upon seals; their number daily diminishing, and why, iii. 83. Greenlanders described, ii. 2. Customary among them to turn Greta, river in Yorkshire running under ground, and rising again, i. 167. Grayhound kind, ii. 295. Grayhound-fox, 323. Grosbeak, bird of the sparrow kind, iii. 385. Grotto of Antiparos, in the Archipelago, the most remarkable subterraneous cavern now known; description, i. 63. Grotto del Cane, near Naples, situation and description; noxious effects, i. 74. Grouse, chiefly found in heathy mountains, and piny forests, iii. 314. Growth of the child less every year, till the time of puberty, when it starts up of a sudden; growth of the mind in children corresponds with that of the body, and why, i. 322. Of some young people ceases at fourteen, or fifteen; in others continues till two or three-and-twenty, 334. Of fishes, irregular and tardy, iv. 228. Guanacoes, a kind of camel in America, iii. 166. Guanches; ancient inhabitants of the island of Teneriffe; art of embalming still preserved among them when the Spaniards conquered the island, ii. 38. Guariba, Brasilian guariba or warine, the largest of the monkey kind in America, described, iii. 118. Gudgeon, description of that fish, iv. 208. Guiba, animal resembling the gazelle; its description, ii. 166. Guillemot, bird of the smaller tribe of the penguin tribe, iv. 87. Guinea ass, larger and more beautiful than the horse, ii. 106. Guinea-hen, described, iii. 309. Guinea-horse, remarkable sports with it among the grandees of that country, ii. 93. Guinea-pig, by Brisson placed among the rabbit kind: native of the warmer climates; rendered domestic, and now become common every where; its description; in some places a principal favourite, often displacing the lap-dog; manner of living among us; most helpless and inoffensive, scarce possessed of any courage; their animosity exerted against each other; often fighting obstinately, and the stronger destroys the weaker; no natural instinct; the female sees her young destroyed, without attempting to protect them; suffer themselves to be devoured by cats; fed upon recent vegetables they seldom drink: sometimes gnaw clothes, paper, or other things of the kind; drink by lapping: confined in a room seldom cross the floor but keep along the wall: never move abreast together; chiefly seek the most intricate retreats, and venture out only when all interruption is removed, like the rabbits; in cold weather more active; a very cleanly animal; their place must be regularly cleaned, and a new bed of hay provided for them once a-week; the young falling into the dirt, or otherwise discomposed, the female takes an aversion to them, and never permits them to visit her more; her employment, and that of the males, consists in smoothing their skins, disposing their hair, and improving its gloss, and take this office by turns: do the same to their young, and bite them when refractory; reared without artificial heat; no keeping them from fire in winter, if once permitted to approach it; manner of sleeping, the male and the female watch one another by turns; generally capable of coupling at six weeks old; time of their gestation; the female brings forth from three to five at a time, not without pain; suckles her young about twelve or fifteen days, and suffers the young of others, though older, to drain her, to the disadvantage of her own: produced with eyes open, and in twelve hours equal to the dam in agility; capable of feeding upon vegetables from the beginning; their disputes for the warmest place, or most agreeable food; manner of fighting; flesh indifferent food; difficultly tamed; suffer no approaches but of the person who breeds them; manner of eating; drink seldom, and make water often; grunt like a young pig; appear to chew the cud, ii. 409. Guinea-sheep, have a kind of dewlap under the chin; breed with other sheep, therefore not animals of another kind, ii. 146. VOL. V.- -0 0 Gull, places where found in plenty; their food, iv. 74. Gulls, various ways of imposing upon each other: contests in breeding; residence, with their nests and eggs: their flesh, method of taking them in the Feroe Islands: anciently a law in Norway concerning those who died in taking them, iv. 77. Gun, wind-gun, instrument determining the elasticity of the air: a ball from it pierces a thick board, i. 219. Great guns, in climates near the equator, with every precaution, after some years, become useless, and why, 223. Gunpowder readily fires with a spark, not with the flame, i. 73. Will not go off in an exhausted receiver: a train of gunpowder laid, one part in open air, the other part in vacuo, the latter will remain untouched, 237. Gurnard, description of this fish, iv. 209. Gymnotus, the carapo, description of this fish, iv. 211. Gyr-falcon, exceeds all others in largeness of size: its description, iii. 267. Gyrle name given by hunters to the roebuck, the second year, ii. 202. H. Haddock, a periodical shoal appeared on the Yorkshire coasts on December 10, 1766, and exactly on the same day in the following year, iv. 220. Hæmorrhois, a kind of serpent, iv. 396. Hail, Cartesians say, is a frozen cloud, half melted and frozen again in its descent: the most injurious meteor known in our climate: hail-stones fourteen inches round: struck out an eye of a young man, and killed him on the spot: a dreadful shower, recorded by Mezeray, fell in 1510, the hail-stones were of a bluish colour, and some weighed a hundred pounds: the fishes were great sufferers in that general calamity, i. 262. &c. Hair of the Roman ladies praised for the redness of its shade, i. 332. Found most different in different climates: marks the country and the disposition of the man; by the ancients held a sort of excrement produced like the nails: according to moderns, every hair lives, receives nutriment, fills, and distends, like other parts of the body: takes colour from the juices flowing through it: each, viewed with a microscope, consists of five or six lesser, wrapped up in one common covering, and sends forth branches at the joints, suitable to the size or shape of the pore through which it issues: bulbous at the root, and its ends resembles a brush: length and strength of hair a mark of a good contstitution: Americans and the Asiatics have it thick, black, straight, and shining: inhabitants of the torrid climates of Africa, have it black, short and woolly: the people of Scandinavia have it red, long, and curled: opinion that every man has dispositions |