THE FAMILY MAGAZINE. NATURAL HISTORY. THE LLAMA. "It is very singular that, although the Llama and the Paco are domesticated in Peru, Mexico, and Chili, as the horse is in Europe, or the Camel in Arabia, we "The growth of the Llama is very quick, and its 1 67 lower a little depending: it wants the incisive and "These useful and even necessary animals are at- The Pacos are a subordinate kind to the Llamas, much are smaller, and not so serviceable; but their "The Pacos also resemble the Llamas in their form, excepting that their legs are shorter, and their muzzle thicker and closer. They inhabit and climb over the highest parts of the mountains. The snow and ice When wild, they keep together in flocks, and run very seem rather agreeable than inconvenient to them. swift; and, as soon as they percieve a stranger, they take flight, driving their young before them. The their ancient monarchs of Peru rigorously prohibited the hunting of them, as they multiply but slowly; but, since the arrival of the Spaniards in these parts, number is greatly decreased, so that at present there are very few remaining. The flesh of these animals their exonly sought after for their fleece, and the bezoar they proves is not so good as that of the Guanacos; and they are produce. The method of taking them treme timidity, or rather their weakness. The hunters having driven the flock into a narrow passage, across which they have stretched a rope about four feet from the ground, with a number of pieces of linen or cloth hanging on it, the animals are so intimidated at the rags agitated by the wind, that they stop, and, crowding together in a heap, the hunters kill great numbers of them with the greatest ease; but if there are any Guanacos among the flock, which are less timid than the Pacos, they leap over the rope with great agility. The example is immediately followed by the whole "With respect to the domestic Pacos, they are used flock, and they escape the stratagem of their pursuers. to carry burdens like the Llamas; but, being smaller and weaker, they carry much less weight. They are likewise of a more stubborn nature; and, when once they rest with their load, they will suffer themselves to be cut to pieces sooner than rise. The Indians have never made use of the milk of these animals, as they have scarcely enough to supply their own young. The great profit derived from their wool has induced the Spaniards to endeavour to naturalize them i. Europe: they have transported them into Spain, in copes to raise the breed in that country; but the climate not agreeing with their nature, not one of them lived. We are nevertheless persuaded that these animals, which are more valuable than the Llamas, might thrive upon our mountains, especially upon the Pyrenean. Those who brought them into Spain did not consider that they can exist, even in Peru, only in the cold regions; that is, on the tops of the highest mountains; that they are never to be found in the valleys, and die if brought into hot countries; that consequently, in order to preserve them, they should be landed, not in Spain, but in Scotland, and even in Norway, and with greater certainty at the foot of the Pyrenean, Alpine, or other mountains, where they might climb, and attain to the region that most agrees with their nature. The Llama is in general a timid and docile animal. If teased or ill-treated, however, they become spiteful. Their mode of manifesting their anger is singular; it consists in darting their saliva in considerable quantity upon the person who offends them. They will cover with it a surface of three or four yards in extent. "The Vicuna, the wool of which is very valuable, is smaller than the Llama; its limbs are more neatly formed, and it has no protuberance on the breast. It below. The Llama also wants the second canine tooth in the lower jaw; but this difference is not, by some, considered such as to require a separation of the genus -for deer of various species have the same deviation from the general type. Again, the absence of the hump in the Llama species is not an anatomical difference which constitutes a character; for, as the skeleton of the Bactrian Camel with two humps does not differ from that of the Arabian with one, so do the bones of the arrangement of the Llama agree precisely with the conformation of the camel. The zebu is an ox, although he has a hump. The ears of the Llama are longer, and the tail is shorter, than those of the camel. The similarities which determine the genus to which the camels and the Llamas belong, are principally these:-1. Each species has very remarkable peculiarities connected with the economy of their reproduction, in which they differ from all other animals. 2. The camel and the Llama differ also from every other species of the class of ruminating animals, in the want of horns, and in having two large incisive teeth on each side of the upper jaw. 3. The stomachs of the camel and the Llama are, in some degree, similarly constructed. Father Feuillee has described the stomach of the Llama; and maintains that it has not only a large reservoir for carrying water, but that, like the stomach of the Camel, it has the same machinery for allowing the separation of solid from liquid alíment. Sir Everard Home, however, describes this portion of the Llama's stomach as only partially re | sembling that of the camel. He says. 'the stomach has a portion of it, as it were, intended to resemble the reservoirs for water in the camel but these have no depth, are only superficial cells, and have no muscular apparatus to close their mouths, and allow the solid food to pass into the fourth cavity, or truly digesting stomach, without going into these cells.' But that the Llama has an internal mernanism for retaining water, or secreting a liquid substance, is certain; for, on the summit of the Andes, they are far above any lakes; and it has been observed that, in a state of domestication, they never exhibit a desire to drink whilst they can obtain green pasture. 4. The Llama, according to Molina, (Storia Nut. del Chili,) has a conformation resembling the came!'s hump, being provided with an excess of nutritive matter, which lies in a thick bed of fat under the skin, and is absorbed as a compensation for an occasional want of food. These remarkable similarities certainly warrant naturalists in classing the camel and the Llama in the same genus, although they differ both in size and form. They are each evidently fitted by nature for the endurance of great hardships and privations-the one amidst the sands of the desert, under a burning sun-the other on the wastes of some of the loftiest mountains of the world, with a region of perpetual snow above them. The slight variations in their conformation, such as that of the foot, are modifications of nature which fit them for their respective localities, and peculiar destinations." as soon as he was born; or perhaps, because he gov- | not to Pan, but to some countrymen, who had observed, erns the affairs of the universal world by his body. on another occasion, the whistling of the wind through reeds. "The Latins called him Inuns and Incubus, the 'nightmare;' and at Rome he was worshipped, and called Lupercus and Lyceus. To his honour a temple was built at the foot of the Palatine hill, and festivals called Lupercalia were instituted, in which his priests, the Luperci, ran about the streets naked. "His descent is uncertain, but the common opinion is, that he was born of Mercury and Penelope. For when Mercury fell violently in love with her, and tried in vain to move her, at last, by changing himself into a white goat, he succeeded. Pan, after he was born, was wrapt up in the skin of a hare, and carried to heaven. "He is represented as a horned half goat, that resembles a beast rather than a man, much less a god. He has a smiling, ruddy face, his nose is flat, his beard comes down to his breast, his skin is spotted, and he has the tail, legs, and feet of a goat; his head is crowned or girt about with pine, and he holds a crooked staff in one hand, and in the other a pipe of uneven reeds, with the music of which he can cheer even the gods themselves. "When the Gauls, under Brennus their leader, made an irruption into Greece, and were just about to plunder the city Delphi, Pan, so terrific in appearance, alarmed them to such a degree, that they all betook themselves to flight, though nobody pursued them. Whence we proverbially say, that men are in panic fear, when we see them affrighted without a cause. "Pan is a symbol of the world. In his upper part he resembles a man, in his lower part a beast; because the superior and celestial part of the world is beautiful, radiant, and glorious; as is the face of this god, whose horns resemble the rays of the sun, and the horns of the moon: the redness of his face is like the splendor of the sky; and the spotted skin that he wears is an image of the starry firmament. In his lower parts he is shagged and deformed, which represents the shrubs and wild beasts, and the trees of the earth below; his goats' feet signify the solidity of the earth, and his pipe of seven reeds that celestial harmony which is made by the seven planets. He has a sheep-hook, crooked at the top, in his hand, which signifies the turning of the year into itself. And while soft ev'ning gales blew o'er the plains, milk and honey in a shepherd's bottle. He was more "Some derive from him Hispania, Spain, formerly called Iberia; for he lived there when he returned from the Indian war, to which he went with Bacchus and the Satyrs. The cut below is a representation of a most tragic scene in the history of Pan, which we will explain. Pan and Cupid had a trial of their prowess in a wrestling match-an affair much celebrated by the poets. Pan was worsted, and thrown flat upon his back. Cupid, not content with this victory, commenced a violent assault on his antagonist, and tore out his heart and bowels. In this act is he represented in the cut before us. We see him with his quiver only, his bow being thrown aside. The syrinx of Pan lies on the ground, separated from its owner. Pan, still glorious in his fall, has his head encircled with radiant beams. Suspended in the air above the combatants, is an olive crown, destined for the conqueror; and still guar-higher a brilliant star. "The nymphs dance to the music of the pipe; which instrument Pan first invented. You will wonder when you hear the relation which the poets give to this pipe, namely, that as oft as Pan blows it, the dugs of the sheep are filled with milk: for he is the god of the shepherds and hunters, the captain of the nymphs, the president of the mountains and of a country life, and the dian of the flocks that graze upon the mountains. Pan loves the shepherds, and their flocks he feeds. "The nymph Echo fell in love with him, and brought him a daughter named Iringes, who gave Medea the medicines with which he charmed Jason. He could but please Dryope, to gain whom he laid aside his divinity, and became a shepherd. But he did not court the nymph Syrinx with so much success: for she ran away to avoid her lover; till coming to a river, (where her flight was stopped,) she prayed the Naiades, the nymphs of the waters, because she could not escape her pursuer, to change her into a bundle of reeds, just as Pan was laying hold of her, who therefore caught the reeds in his arms instead of her. The winds moving these reeds backward and forward, occasioned plaintive sounds, which Pan perceiving, cut them down, and made of them reeden pipes. He sighs; his sighs the tossing reeds return We will conclude the account of Pan by the story of him related in Higinus, (c. 196.) "The gods having made their retreat to Egypt, through fear of the fury of Typhon, Pan advised them to change themselves into beasts to elude that giant's pursuit. As an acknowledgment of his salutary counsel, they afterwards placed him among the stars; and inasmuch as he transformed himself into a goat to conceal himself from Typhon, he was called Egoceros, that is, Capricorn." lates that a thousand millions of animalculæ, which Lewenhoeck, the great microscopic observer, calcuso large as a grain of sand. In the milt of a single are discovered in common water, are not all together codfish there are more animals than there are upon the whole earth; for a grain of sand is bigger than four millions of them. The white matter that sticks to the teeth also abounds with animalcula of various figures, to which vinegar is fatal, and it is known that vinegar contains animalcules in the shape of eels. A mite was "But Lucretius ascribes the invention of these pipes anciently thought the limit of littleness; but we are In soft small notes, like one that seem'd to mourn; So he this pipe of reeds unequal fram'd that, so far from being crowded or wanting room, the pepper-corn would have held four hundred more. One penny worth of crude iron can by art be manufactured into watch-springs, so as to produce some thousand pounds.-London Mirror. not now surprised to be told of animals 27 millions of CURIOUS TITLES AND QUAINTNESS. and Cromwell. We select the following as samples. These titles were common in the time of Charles I. 66 The Snuffers of Divine Love." Cromwell's tled, "A most delectable, sweet perfumed nosegay, for ven Devil's Head Quarters, through the Tube of the CanBelievers ;" another, "A Shot aimed at the non of the Covenant." This is an author who speaks plain language, which the most illiterate reprobate canweli tempered for the stubborn Ears of the coming not fail to understand. Another, "A Reaping Hook Crop, or Biscuits baked in the oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation.". To another we have the following cofor Sin, or the Seven Penitential Psalms of the Princepious description,-"Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul ly Prophet David, whereunto are also annexed William Humuis's handful of Honey-suckles, and divers Godly and pithy Ditties now newly augmented." world but as an atom." Mr. Power says he saw a golden chain at Tredescant's Museum, South Lambeth, of three hundred links, not more than an inch in length, fastened to and pulled away by a flea. And I myself, (says Baker, in his Essay on the Microscope,) have seen very lately, near Durham-yard, in the Strand, and have examined with my microscope, a chaise (made by one Mr. Boverick, a watch-maker) having four wheels, with all the proper apparatus belonging to them, turning readily on their axles: together with a man sitting in the chaise; all formed of ivory, and drawn along by a flea without any seeming difficulty. I weighed it with the greatest care I was able, and found the chaise, man, and flea were barely equal to a single grain. I weighed also, at the same time and place, a brass chain made by the same hand, about two inches long, containing two hundred links, with a hook at one end, and a padlock and key at the other, and found it less than the third part of a grain. I likewise have seen a quadrille table, with a drawer in it, an eating table, a sideboard table, a looking-glass, twelve chairs with skeleton backs, two dozen plates, six dishes, a dozen knives, and as many forks, twelve spoons, two salts, a frame and castors, together with a gentleman, lady, and footman, all contained in a cherry stone, and not filling much more than half of it." At the present day are to be purchased 2. Her population is over two millions of souls, of cherry stones highly polished, with ivory screws, which whom more than half a million between the ages of 5 contain each 120 perfect silver spoons, an ingenious and 15 are constantly receiving the benefits of our adbauble worthy the patronage of the juvenile part of the mirable system of primary education, to say nothing community. We are told that one Oswald Merlinger of the half million of dollars fund annually devoted made a cup of a pepper-corn, which held twelve hun- | to that purpose, besides seven richly endowed colleges dred other little cups, all turned in ivory, each of them and universities, for the higher branches of instruction. being gilt on the edges, and standing upon a foot; and 3. There are 56 counties, 783 towns and cities-128 THE EMPIRE STATE. There is more meaning than at first meets the eye in this expression of "Empire State," though it is sometimes used ironically. The resources of this great State are indeed immense, and it requires nothing more than a cursory examination of the picture of her actual condition, to be convinced at once that her gigantic march in the prosperous career she has begun, must at no distant period, give her a controlling power over the destinies of this Union, the magnitude and consequences of which but few appreciate. 1. The surface of the State of New York is larger than England, and when its fertility and mineral and other resources and advantages are considered, is nearly double any of the other largest Sates in the confederacy, covering a space of 45,658 square miles. It is the only State whose territory stretches from the borders of the Atlantic Ocean to the great inland seas, thus forming, by her extensive internavigable communications between those waters, a direct channel into the very heart of the North American continent, and a natural outlet for the greater portion of the immense resources of the Union. |