Spitzbergen: "We were greatly amused by the singular and affectionate conduct of a walrus towards its young. In the vast sheet of ice which surrounded the ships, there were occasionally many pools; and when the weather was clear and warm, animals of various kinds would frequently rise and sport about in them, or crawl from thence upon the ice to bask in the warmth of the sun. A walrus rose in one of these pools close to the ship, and, finding everything quiet, dived down and brought up its young, which it held to its breast by pressing it with its flipper. In this manner it moved about the pool, keeping in an erect posture, and always directing the face of the young towards the vessel. On the slightest movement on board, the mother released her flipper, and pushed the young one under water; but, when everything was again quiet, brought it up as before, and for a length of time continued to play about in the pool, to the great amusement of the seamen, who gave her credit for abilities in tuition, which, though possessed of considerable sagacity, she hardly merited."

The walrus has two great enemies in its icy home-the Polar bear and the Esquimaux. Captain Beechey thus graphically describes the manœuvres of that king of the Bruin race, which must often be attended with success. The bears, when hungry, are always on the watch for animals sleeping upon the ice, and try to come on them unawares, as their prey darts through holes in the ice. "One sunshiny day a walrus, of nine or ten feet length, rose in a pool of water not very far from us; and after looking around, drew his greasy carcass upon the ice, where he rolled about for a time, and at length laid himself down to sleep. A bear, which had probably been observing his movements, crawled carefully upon the ice on the opposite side of the pool, and began to roll about also, but apparently more with design than amusement, as he progressively les

sened the distance that intervened between him and his prey. The walrus, suspicious of his advances, drew himself up preparatory to a precipitate retreat into the water in case of a nearer acquaintance with his playful but treacherous visitor; on which the bear was instantly motionless, as if in the act of sleep; but after a time began to lick his paws, and clean himself, occasionally encroaching a little more upon his intended prey. But even this artifice did not succeed; the wary walrus was far too cunning to allow himself to be entrapped, and suddenly plunged into the pool; which the bear no sooner observed, than he threw off all disguise, rushed towards the spot, and followed him in an instant into the water, where, I fear, he was as much disappointed in his meal, as we were of the pleasure of witnessing a very interesting encounter."

The meat of the walrus is not despised by Europeans, and its heart is reckoned a delicacy. To the Esquimaux there is no greater treat than a kettle well filled with walrusblubber; and to the natives along Behring's Straits this quadruped is as valuable as is the palm to the sons of the Desert. Their canoes are covered with its skin; their weapons and sledge-runners, and many useful articles, are formed from its tusks; their lamps are filled with its oil; and they themselves are fed with its fat and its fibre. So thick is the skin, that a bayonet is almost the only weapon which can pierce it. Cut into shreds, it makes excellent cordage, being especially adapted for wheel-ropes. The tusks bear a high commercial value, and are extensively employed by dentists in the manufacture of artificial teeth. The fat of a good-sized specimen yields thirty gallons of oil.

A. W.

LIFE, IN ITS LOWER FORMS.

"THE works of the Lord are great:" but we must not estimate this greatness by their actual dimensions; else a man would be of less importance than a hippopotamus, and the Bass Rock would be immensely more valuable than either. It is a greatness not measurable by rule and line,— not to be determined by bulk and weight; it is to be estimated by far other qualities,-by the relative importance which the objects bear to each other, by the variety and complexity of their parts, by the elaborateness with which they are constructed, by their fitness for the purposes which they are destined to subserve, and especially by the degree in which they show forth the power, wisdom, skill, and goodness of Him who made them for His own glory. Many of the animals of which we are about to speak are so minute that the unassisted eye takes no cognisance of their presence; yet most of these,—perhaps all, if we were able to investigate them,—are so curiously fashioned, so elaborately constructed, as to deserve to be included in the category of those works which the adoring Psalmist says are

GREAT.

We propose in this series of papers to describe some of the more curious and less-known phases of animal life, commencing at the foot of the scale, where we catch the first glimmering of the vital spark, and tracing it step by step upwards through its various developments and changes, its forms and functions. But what is LIFE? There is a mystery couched under that little word which all the research of

philosophers has not been able to solve. Science, with the experience of ages, with all the appliances of art, and with all the persevering ingenuity and skill that could be brought to bear upon it, has ardently laboured to lift the veil; but philosophy, and science, and art, stand abashed before the problem, and confess it a mystery still. The phenomena, the properties of life, are readily observable. We take a bird

in our hands; a few moments ago it was full of energy and animation; it shook its little wings as it hopped from perch to perch; its eyes glanced brightly, and its throat quivered as it poured out the thrilling song which delighted us. Now the voice has ceased, the eye is dim, the limbs are stiffening, and we know that it will move no more. Chemical changes have already begun to operate upon its organs; decomposition is doing its work, and soon the beautiful little bird will be a heap of dust. We say that its life has gone; but what is it that has gone? If we put the body in the most delicate balance, it weighs not a grain less than when it was alive; if we measure it, its dimensions are precisely the same; the scalpel of the anatomist finds all the constituent parts that made the living being; and what that mighty principle is, the loss of which has wrought such a change, alike eludes research and baffles conjecture. We are compelled here to recognise the Great First Cause, and to say, "In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

The researches of modern science, however, aided by the inventions which it has brought into requisition, though they have been unable to throw a single ray of light on the nature of Life itself, have yet done much to make us familiar with its phenomena. The microscope, in particular, has opened to our inquiry what we may call a world of life, under phases and forms as strange and surprising as they were before unknown. It has enabled us also to separate and analyse the various substances or tissues of which the

highest forms of animate being are composed, and to resolve them into their first elements. Numerous and diverse as are these substances-bone, cartilage, sinew, nerve, muscle, hair, the teeth, the nails of the hand, the transparent lens of the eye, all are reducible to one kind of structure. This structure is a cell. All organic substances are made up of cells. The primary organic cell is a minute, pellucid globule, invisible to the naked eye, and containing within it a smaller cell, called the nucleus, which again contains a still more minute granule, called the nucleolus, or little nucleus. Even the highest animals, in the early development of the embryo, are composed entirely of nucleated cells, which afterwards assume the forms peculiar to the various tissues. In the lowest classes of animals, their more simple bodies consist almost entirely of cells of this kind. If we take a minute portion of the gelatinous flesh of a medusa or a zoophyte, and crush it between two plates of glass beneath the microscope, the substance is presently resolved into a multitude of oval pellucid granules, each of which for a short time maintains a spontaneous motion, sometimes rotating upon itself, but more commonly jerking or quivering irregularly. These are the primary cells, and their motion is, doubtless, to be attributed to the presence of certain hairs, called cilia; for we cannot believe that it is at all connected with currents in the fluid that surrounds them, to which it has sometimes been referred.

Cilia play an important part in the economy of all animals. Even in the highest forms, many of the internal surfaces are furnished with them, and nearly all the motions which do not depend upon muscular contraction are produced by them. In the lower tribes, especially those which are aquatic, the office of these organs becomes more important and more apparent, until in the very lowest we find all movement originating with them.