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This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: HAMLEY, EDWARD BRUCE TITLE: OUR POOR RELATIONS PHILOZOIC ESSAY ... PLA CE: ' BOSTON DA TE: 1872 Restrictions on Use: Master Negative # COLUiMBlA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record r QiA/r poo-r phi'ozOiC essav^... 3cs*c^ 1872.. D. 1389HH 7 9 p. P' . pi . V V\-> VYN TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO FILM SlZE:__jb^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA IIA IB IIB DATE FILMED:_jiUiC^_jb__Mj2 _ INITI ALS__r^Jl>i?i HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS, INC VVOODBRIDGE. CT \\y Aim Ai« o cl«Hon lor I n J o n m itio a and liwg» Ktewaginiit 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 5 1 1 1 M M j M 1 1 1 i 1 1 1 1 M 1 1 1 1 1 M I M 1 1 1 II i I jmi Im^^ 8 10 im- I 1 I I 1 I 1 1 1 nc! hes I 1 I 2 ! 1 1 1 1 1 1 llll lllllllllllllllll jiilimli 11 12 'uukil 1.0 I.I 1.25 I i^g 2.8 2.5 |W Li 1" "S 1 4.0 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.4 1.6 13 ! 14 15 mm ipwt^w I 5 +1 ^-z MfiNUFfiCTURED TO fillM STPNDflRDS BY PPPLIED IMfiGE, INC. E.B.HAMLI^r^ J t L- \ \T3.^ H\8 in tite ffiitu of iU»v iltxvit l^ibratig. SiMUH Ic, SPEDuli New YorK Man surrounded by Jtis Poor Relations. OUR POOR RELATIONS. A PHILOZOIC ESS A Y BY COLONEL E. B. HAMLEY. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS CHIEFLV BY ERNEST GRISET. «(V BOSTON : J. E. TILTON AND COMPANY. 1872. :.-i » V I •V Vi I CO O O mmi Mc. SPEDON New York '->v^.?- ^■<%- iv^ji^^^AN any one fancy what this world would be like if inhabited by no other animal but man ? — the earth without its "^767 5 6 Our Poor Relations, four-footed and its creeping things, the sea and the river vacant of their shy silvery gleams and far-darting shadows, the air void of the choral hum of insects and the song of birds ? What a dismal hush in creation ! what a multitudi- nous charm and delight wanting to the woods, the fields, the shallows, and the deeps ! What glory lost to the grass with the spotted lady- birds, the mail-clad beetles, and the slender grasshoppers ! What splendor gone from the flower with the bronzed and fire-tipped bee that fed on its heart, and the painted butterfly that hovered above its petals ! How dull had been Eden for Adam with nothing breathing but Eve, and all the rest of creation inanimate — no voice but that of the wind or the thunder — no motion but the flow of the stream, the float- ing of the clouds, the waving of the trees ! The earth would have been silent as a picture ; the forest and the plain, the mountain and the lake, forlorn, tremendous, insupportable soli- tudes — solitudes that none would have sought, since there could have been neither hunters nor fishers, herdsmen nor shepherds. In far other measure has the gift of life been poured forth upon the earth. All the genera- ki ^ Our Poor Relations, J tions of all the tribes of men are but a handful to the myriads of creatures which to-day, to- morrow, and every day, haunt land, air, and water, till inanimate nature teems with the sen- tient vitality that lends it all its interest and all its significance. A leaf holds a family, a clod a community, and there is material for the spec- ulations of a lifetime in the tenants of the neighboring meadow, and of the brook that waters it. The unclouded heavens would be oppressive in their vastness and loneliness but for those frequent travellers high in air, the rook, the raven, or rarer heron, that flap their untiring way onwards till they melt again into the blue depths out of which they grew upon the sight. The bare white cliffs are no longer barren when their clangorous population of chough and kittiwake and daw are abroad in the sunshine ; and the black storm-cloud, com- ing up on the blast behind its veil of rain, gains a beauty which before it had not, as it throws into relief the white wing of the sea-gull. Nay, in some countries where calm and sunshine are more permanent conditions of the atmosphere than here, we learn that the regions of air are not only a highway, but a home. Sir Samuel 8 Our Poor Relations. Baker observes that when an animal is slain in the Nubian wilderness, within a few seconds a succession of birds, hitherto invisible, descend on the prey, and always in the same order. First the black-and-white crow arrives, then the buzzard, then the small vulture, then the large vulture, lastly the marabout stork. " I believe," says Sir Samuel, " that every species keeps to • its own particular elevation, and that the atmos- phere contains regular strata of birds of prey, who, invisible to the human eye at their enor- mous height, are constantly resting upon their widespread wings and soaring in circles, watch- ing with telescopic sight the world beneath." It is like a tale born of Persian or Arabian fan- tasy to hear that above the traveller in the desert hangs a huge mansion, " impalpable to feehng as to sight," with its basement, its first and second floors, its attics, and its turrets ; or (to vary the image) that the social system of the atmosphere comprises its lower orders, its mid- dle classes, and its upper ten thousand. It is a pleasant, if somewhat extravagant, fancy, to figure to one's self man dwelling amid his fellow-tenants of the earth in completest harmony, the friend and companion of some, u Our Poor Relations, 9 the protector of others, the harmer of none, the intelligent observer of all. Who shall say what new unforeseen relations might not have been established between us and our humble friends on this basis of confidence and affection } Who shall say that they might not have revealed to us that secret which they have guarded since the creation — the secret of their instincts and their ways ; what their notions are of the world, of each other, and of man ; and how far they look before and after.? It was one of Hawthorne's prettiest wild fancies, that Dona- tello, the descendant of the old Fauns, and the partial inheritor of their sylvan nature, still held kinship with the untamed creatures of the woods, and could draw them into communion with him by the peculiar charm of his voice. Every one who has domesticated some strange, shy creature can testify to the wealth of char- acter which it came to display in the ripening warmth of intimacy ; and several naturalists (by which term we are far from intending to signify the dissectors of frogs, the scientific ex- perimenters on the nerves and muscles of doo-s. or the impalers of beetles and butterflies) have recorded their pleasant experiences of these lO Oiir Poor Relations. connections. Thus one of them, in spite of ancient prejudice and proverbial adjectives, has elicited fine social qualities in a bear ; another has owned a beaver of such intelligence that it might almost have been persuaded to become a Christian ; while Caroline Bowles, whose taste in this particular we respect rather than like, kept a toad (a practice which we had thought to be peculiar to old ladies who are in league with the devil), and grew so fond of the un- promising associate as to celebrate its virtues in verse. What diversity and distinctness of character in the poet Cowper's three hares ! Could any amount of hare-soup, civet de lievre, jugged hare, or roast hare, that ever figured at a century of city feasts, have made amends to the world for the want of the affectionate record of their social qualities ? Yet many a Puss, Tiney, and Bess, as full of whim and play and individuality as they, perishes unappreciated in every day of cover-shooting, or is run into, in the open, by heartless and undiscriminating beagles. Especially in their early youth are the four-footed peoples lovely and of good re- port : not to mention such obvious examples as the soft graces of kittens, the pretty, stiff frisk- ' Page II. Our Poor Relations. II 1 ^\ ings of lambs, like toys in motion (all the lamb family are as full of quaint fun as Charles him- self), and the clumsy geniality of puppies, the rule will be found elsewhere of pretty general application. Young pigs are dehghtful — their gambols, and squeaky grunts, and pokings in the straw, and relations with their mother and brethren, are marked with a grave facetiousness all their own, though the spectator who would enjoy them must be careful to ignore the sensual alderman ic life of the mature porker. Young donkeys, on the other hand, are by so much the more charming, as being invested with the pa- thos (quite awanting to the pigling) of the fu- ture hard existence that is pretty certain to await each member of the race as a poor man's drudge. Foxes, in private life, and apart from their public merits as main supporters of a great national institution, are full of estimable quali- ties, as many a poacher who, watching for other game, has noted Mrs. Reynard unbending in the moonlight with her young family, might tes- tify ; and a little fox, with his face full of a grave, sweet intelligence, which is as yet unde- based by the look of worldly astuteness con- spicuous in after life, is one of the prettiest 12 Oiir Poor Relations. * sights in the world. Domesticated, they de- velop, in addition to their native sagacity, a most affectionate attachment to those who are kind to them ; and though, owing to personal peculiarities, their society is most agreeable when the visitor approaches them from wind- ward, yet acquaintance with a fox will always repay cultivation. Going further afield for ex- amples of unobtrusive merit, what a wealth of humor is comprised in the phrase, "a wilderness of monkeys ! " What endless fun, what fresh comedy, what brilliant farce, what infinity of by-play and private jesting, quite beyond the reach of our most popular comedians, is being . forever enacted in those leafy theatres where they hold their untiring revels ! How little are they dependent on the stimulus of a sympa- thetic audience, how free from the vulgarity of playing at the galleiy, how careless about split- ting the ears of the groundlings, how careful always to hold the mirror up to nature and to man ! Hamlet could have given them no ad- vice that would have been of service ; on the contrary, they would have been spoiled by being " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," — a metaphysical monkey, mooning over his bar- SAMUEL It. SPEDOJ^ New York Our Poor Relations. 13 ren philosophy, would sit in dismal discord with the surrounding fun. Even in captivity the merry race cultivate the drama, and the audi- ences about the great cages in the Jardin des Plantes or our own Zoological, are never disap- pointed in the performance. It was on a Sunday last summer, that we witnessed, in the monkey-house in the Regent's Park, a piece, the serious cast of v/hich was, on Shakespearean principles, relieved by passages of lighter matter. Perched on their poles en- gaged in mutual friendly investigation, or swing- ing airily on ropes, the community was unusu- ally quiet, while a female monkey, not the least of whose attractions was a roseate flush which spread itself over part of her else russet-gray person, was engaged in deep flirtation with a cavalier whose nether-monkey was of a tender green shading into gold. The impassioned Ro- meo, chattering voluble protestations, followed the coy but loquacious Juliet, while that lasciva piiella pelted him in retiring with orange-peel, nutshells, and straws, till they arrived beneath a branch along which lay extended another mon- key, who watched the pair attentively. He may have been a rival, like the County Paris, or a f' 14 Our Poor Relations, dissatisfied relative, like Tybalt, or possibly he may have resented as an injury and a slight any preference of other attractions to his own, for he presented to the curious eye some embellish- ments of brilliant azure. Be that as it may, without the slightest warning he dropped like a plummet on the enamoured pair, and, seizing Romeo, bit him in his gorgeous hinder parts. The injured swain, turning with an appalling grin, grappled his assailant ; Juliet fled shriek- ing, and her outcries, mingling with the noise of combat, conveyed the tidings of the strife to all the cage, and '* spread the truth from pole to pole." Thereupon all the other monkey.-., leav- ing their own private concerns, vaulted from rope and perch towards the scene of action, where, with shrill clamor, they precipitated themselves on the combatants, and joined in a general fray ; while an elderly and morose ba- boon, delayed by age and infirmity, arrived rather later, and, armed with a stick, belabored all indiscriminately who came within hi.s reach. Shortly after, we beheld, in a neighboring cage, a monkey, of dark, attenuated figure, clinging with hands and feet, like a gigantic hairy spider, to the wire roof, apparently absorbed in mrHita- Our Poor Relations. 15 tion, while his tail hung perpendicularly down to the length of about a yard. This appendage offered irresistible attractions to a friend upon a neighboring rope, who, after long and earnest- ly surveying it as he swung, reached it in one wild leap, and, grasping it with both hands, pro- ceeded to use it as the vehicle of an animated gymnastic performance. The sage above, no- ways discomposed, slowly turned his head, and, after a patronizing glance at the pendent acro- bat, resumed the thread of his meditations. Possibly this was intended as a practical illus* tration of the feat known to logicians as "jump- ing at a conclusion." But whether grave or gay, the charm of undomcsticatcd animal.s is, that they show us their nature fresh from the fashioner, unmodified by education, or ilie opin- ion of others, or any influcDcc which mi^jht make them wish to seem other than ihey arc ; and they follow their sports, their maiing;$, the .shaping of their alxxles, their paiental cares, the purveying of their food, their slumbers, and flights and perambulations, their relations to their fcllow.s, whether gregark>us or solitar}\ with absolute independence of all impulatcs ex- cept those which inspired the first of their race. i6 Our Poor Reiations. Our Poor Relations. The idea of a paradise of animals who move without fear round the central figure of man, is not altogether fanciful, for something like it has been witnessed from time to time by lost crews, or storm-driven mariners, who reach, Crusoe- like, a haven in some hitherto unexplored prov- ince of Ocean. Birds of strange plumage come out to welcome the solitary figure in the boat, to perch on the prow, and to herald its progress ; it ncars the shore of the far antarctic region, "^^— 1 """X^ ,' .rf!^. ^.ii- ■■«l:n ^ If^if'^"!*! amid a crowd of gamesome seals, like the car of Amphitrite conducted by a procession of l1' Tritons. On the sands sit sea-lions, gazing with their solemn eyes at man, like conscript fathers receiving a foreign envoy ; penguins waddle in his path ; the greater and lesser alba- tross come floating by, turning a bright, fearless glance on him. Or, in warmer regions, dolphins are his avanf couriers ; at his approach, turtles broad of back scarce quit their eggs in the sand to crawl into the water ; the gaudy parrots, and creamy, crested cockatoos, scream inquiry, not indignation, from the branches ; the woodpeck- er scarce pauses in his tapping ; the shining dove ceases not to woo his mate ; the apes chatter a welcome, and grin not less affably than many a host and hostess who desire to give the guest a hospitable reception. We have ourselves, in the depths of Canadian for- ests, amid pines " hidden to the knees " in snow, seen the white hare pause to look at us, as she hopped past a few yards off ; the tree- grouse, glancing downward from a branch close by with an air of courteous inquiry ; and the spruce-partridges never disturbing the order in which they sat on the boughs, as our snow- shoes crunched the crisp surface underneath — a confidence but ill requited ; for an Indian, I i8 Our Poor Relations. who guided us in those trackless woods, ascend- ing the tree, and beginning with the bird that sat lowest, plucked off, by means of a stick and a noose, several in succession, passing the fatal loop round their necks with a skill worthy of Calcraft. Not to us does this kind of tameness seem " shocking," as Cowper thought it must have seemed to lonely Crusoe, but rather de- lightful, because proof of the innocence that imagines no evil ; and very touching, because it betrays the simple creature which one might think it ought to protect. In fact, the relations between man and his co- tenants of the globe would have been altogether delightful but for one unlucky circumstance, — a circumstance which, far from being inevitable or natural, is one of the insoluble problcnvi of thi» earth, and has caused a terrible jar and discord in creation, — namely, the fact that one animal is food for another. No doubt, as matters .stand, beasts and birds of prey must follow their na- ture ; the tearing of flesh and the picking of bones are the correlatives of fangs \\w<\ f;riiiders, beaks and talons ; and the comparative anato- mist is compelled to coincide with that practical Yankee, who, being told that in the. dayss of the ^ Our Poor Relations. 19 millennium the lion and the lamb will lie down together, said, " He expected the lamb would lie down inside the lion." Nor is there any sign of relaxation in the vigor with which man continues to devour fish, flesh, and fowl ; and no individual human stomach reaches maturity without sacrificing whole hecatombs of victims by the way. If we (the present writer) were to make any pretence to a virtuous distaste for flesh, we should justly be rebuked by the thought of all the slayings and cookings that our presence in the world lw.s caused and will yet cause. All the yot unborn, unliticred, and unhatchcd creatures that will be tTu.«^icd and jointed, skewered, basted, roaiJiecl boiled, penned. and served up, to keep our i^infjle fiou! and body together, nii.j'.ht very properly iow, bleat, g^runt, gobble, quack, cacklc. and chirp us the lie in our Ihiual. In poiflicular might wc be haunted and humbled by the mcmor)' of our carnivo- rous desires on that evening wh9»4«ie-»^ne^v«r4^H«««^ Our Poor Relations. 35 they showed so much intelligence, and seemed to think I was operating upon them to do them good. In such cases I have occasionally kept them, but usually I turn them into the streetT Is it uncharitable to hope that the next dog operated on may be rabid, and may bite this scientific inquirer ? There is a well-known piteous case, too, of an English vivisector who operated on his own dog while it licked the hand that continued to dissect it. But there is yet another class of these vota- ries of science, called Naturahsts, to whom no kind of creature that can be classified comes amiss as a victim, from a butterfly to a hippo- potamus. Armed sometimes with a rifle, some- times less expensively with a pin, they go forth into strange lands to collect what they call the " fauna." Millions of moths, before they have fluttered out half their brief existence in the sunshine, are secured by these sportsmen, and impaled in boxes. Lizards and other reptiles suspected of differing from the rest of their race, are put to death without mercy. The rarity of various birds, and the splendor of their plumage, are held to be sufficient grounds for their execution. So earnest in their pursuit irji 36 Our Poor Relations. Our Poor Relations. 37 are these gentlemen, that we have sometimes, when reading their own accounts of their do- ings, suspected that they would have scrupled little to add a stray Native now and then to their collection, provided they did not thereby expose themselves to the penalties for murder. We will here give some extracts from the re- cent work of a naturalist, which is in many respects agreeable and entertaining, premising that the "Mias" who figures in them is a gigan- tic ape (the orang-outang, we believe), a native of Borneo, living for the most part inoffensive- ly on the products of the woods ; and that only a single case is quoted in the book of any of the race having injured mankind, in which one that was intercepted in its retreat to a tree, and stabbed with spears and hacked with axes, re- sented these playful aggressions so far as to bite one of its assailants in the arm. This is the account of the result oi a great many shots fired by the naturalist at a Mias who was making off through the branches of the tall trees : " On examination we found that he had been dreadfully wounded. Both legs were broken, one hip-joint and the root of the spine completely shattered, and two bullets were found flattened in his neck and jaws ! Yet he was still alive when he fell." Another of these subjects of scientific inves- tigation was thus treated : — *' Two shots caused this animal to lose his hold, but he hunsr for a considerable time by one hand, and tiien fell flat on his face, and was half buried in the swamp. For several minutes he lay groaning and panting, and •we stood close round, expecting every breath to be his last. Suddenly, however, by a violent eflbrt, he raised himself up, causing us all to step back a yard or two, Avhen, standing nearly erect, he caught hold of a small tree, and began to ascend it. Another shot throusrh the back caused him to fall down dead. A flattened bullet was found in his tongue, having entered the lower part of the abdomen, and completely traversed the body, frac- turing the first cervical vertebra. Yet it w-as after this fearful wound that he had risen and begun climbing with considerable facility." This was the fate of another of these unfor- tunates : — " We found a Mias feeding in a very lofty durion tree, and succeeded in killing it after eight shots. Unfor- tunately it remained in the tree, hanging by its hands; and wc were obliged to leave it and return home, as it ■was several miles off. As I felt pretty sure it would fall during the night, I returned to the place early the next morning, and found it on the ground beneath the tree. To my astonishment and pleasure, it appeared to be a different kind from any I had yet seen." Perhaps the reader, whose sensibilities are as yet unaffected by companionship with natural- \ . 38 Our Poor Relations, ists, may think that these are very shocking penalties for the crime of being a Mias, and of possessing an anatomical structure much coveted by museums ; and may feel disposed (parodying Madame Roland) to exclaim, " O Science, what deeds are done in thy name ! " In those days (says an Oriental fabulist in the least known of his apologues which we have taken the trouble to translate from the original Arabic), when certain sages w^ere acquamted with the language of animals (an accomplish- ment which they inherited from Solomon, who is well known to have added this to his other stores of wisdom), it naturally came to pass that, not only did men know something of the thoughts of birds and beasts, but to birds and beasts were imparted some of the ideas of men, and, among others, that of a devil or malignant power who is the source of evil. Much im- pressed with the reality of the ills of life, and the expediency of lessening them, the fowls and brutes resolved to seek some means of propi- tiating the being who exercised over them so baleful an influence. Accordingly they held a convocation to debate the matter, and finding Our Poor Relations, 39 it necessary, as a first step, to gain a more definite idea of the nature and attributes of this malevolent Power, different classes of animals were called on to describe the ills they chiefly suffered from, that their misfortunes might^hus be traced to a common source. The Lion, as the representative of beasts of prey, declared that he would have nothing to complain of, game being plentiful, were it not for the accursed hunters with their devices, which left him no peace. The Antelope said that the class of wild creatures to which he belonged would be content to match their own vigilance and swift- ness against the craft and strength of their four- footed persecutors, but that they could not con- tend v/ith the terrible ingenuity of man, who, in his pursuit of them, had even called other ani- mals to his aid ; and that, whereas a beast of prey molested them only for the satisfaction of his individual needs, man was insatiate in slaugh- ter. The birds were of one consent that they feared little the hostility of animals, but that snares and traps rendered their lives a burden by causing them to distrust every mouthful they ate. The Sheep, as the mouthpiece of a large a i 40 Our Poor Relations. class of domestic animals, declared that he was well cared for, fed, and protected from harm, but that he paid a heavy price for these favors by liv- ing in constant expectation of the inevitable and extremely premature moment when he would be- come mutton. The Horse averred that he also was well cared for, and that, moreover, his life, unlike the sheep's, was insured so long as he had health and strength, but (motioning with his muzzle towards the saddle-marks on his back and the spur-galls on his flanks) that his life was deprived of savor by being one of perpetual slavery. I'hc Dog said that his lot might perhaps seem the happiest of all, in being the compan- ion of his master, but that in reality he had more to lament than any of them, since protec- tion was only granted to him on condition that he should aid in the destruction of his fellow- brutes. A great mass of information having been accumulated in this way, the assembly seemed still as far as ever from discoverins: the object of its inquiry, when an ancient Raven, of vast repute for wisdom, hopping to a loftier branch, desired to speak. " My friends," he croaked, "what we are seeking lies under our very noses. I perceive what this power of evil Our Poor Relations. 41 is, and how futile will be all attempts to propi- tiate it, for it is clear that Man, insatiate Man, is our Devil ! " Yet, in truth, is Nature often no less harsh than man in dealing with her inarticulate off- spring. To them (as indeed to us) she shows fitful favor, capricious severity. In one zone animal life seems all happiness, in another all misery. It is a pleasure to a care-laden, tax- hampered citizen merely to think how, under certain conditions of adaptation to climate, whole tribes of creatures, countless in number, revel i 42 Our Poor Relations. in the opulence and prodigality of food, of air, of sunshine, and of sport ; — the task of support- ing life is so easy as to leave them infinite leisure for enjoying it ; — they are as Sandwich Island- ers, into whose simple, untaught methods of making existence pleasure, no missionary can ever introduce the jarring element of a half- awakened conscience. As Shelley heard in the notes of the skylark "clear, keen joyance," " love of its own kind," and " ignorance of pain," and exhausted himself in sweet similitudes for the small musician that "panted forth a flood of rapture so divine," — so, had we his gift, we might discern elements as rare in the lives of various races, but which, owing to the accident of wanting a grammatical language, they are un- able to reveal to us. What a descriptive poem must the Eagle have in him, who, sailing in ether, miles beyond our ken, sees earth beneath him as a map, and through gaps in the clouds catches blue glimpses of the ocean and yellow gleams of the desert ! Often, while resting on his great pennons in the serene blue, has he seen a thun- der-storm unroll its pageant beneath him, and watched the jagged lightning as it darted earth- ward. (Tom Campbell was once taken up by Our Poor Relations 43 an eagle near Oran, and, coming- safely down, described what he had seen in immortal verse ) Those hermit birds which live by lonely streams in wild valleys, like the Ousel and the Kino-- fisher, must be full of delicate fancies — fancies very different from those, which must be very delicate also, that visit the nomads of the air, such as the Swallow, the Cuckoo, and the Quail, with their large experience of countries, and climes, and seas. How dehcious, how ever fresh, 'how close to nature, the life of a Sea-fowl whose home is in some cliff fronting the dawn, and who, dwelling always there, yet sees infinite variety in the ever-changing sky and sea — flapping leisurely over the gentle ripples in the morning breeze — alighting in the depths which mirror the evening sky so placidly as to break into circles round the dip of his wing pierc- ing, like a ray the silver haze of the rain-cloud — lost in the dusky bosom of the squall — blown about like a leaf on the storm which strews the shore with wrecks — and, next day, rising and falling in the sunshine on the curves of the swell ! Turning from air to earth, the very spirit of Tell — the spirit of independence bred of the pure sharp air of mountain solitudes and the stern 44 Our Poor Relations. aspect of the snow-clad pinnacles — must live in the Chamois, who seeks his food and pastime on the verge of immeasurable precipices. Grand also, but infinitely difierent, the solitary empire of some shaggy lord of the wilderness on whose ease none may intrude, and who stalks throu'^h life surrounded by images of flight and terror — glowing always with the gloomy rage of the despot — a despot careless of hereditary right, elected by nobody's suffrage, relying on no strength but his own, and absolutely indifferent to public opinion. Below these lofty rcpons of animal grandeur, but quite within ihc circle of comfort ai>J liappincss> dwell an infinite number of croaiurtr-c, some finding their fcliciv) \\\ flocks ur herds, some in retiring into strict domestic seclusion with the mate of their cHoicc, sonM> in exercising the constructive facuiucs with which they are 50 my.stcriously and unerringly endowed. The coneys arc but a feeble folk, y-et they may have their own ideas of household iuffnigc in those close burrows of theirs, and could dnubt- Icss chronicle much that would be valuable to parents while bringing up alwut fifteen fam- iJks a year. Rats and mice, and such small deer, lead lives of great variety, observation, and Our Poor Relations. 45 adventure, though precarious and ;iiostly tragi- cal in their ending, the poison and the steel being as fatal to them as to the enemies of the Porgias, or claimants to disputed successions in the middle ages. And again, beneath these, too insignificant to excite the hostility or cupid- ity of man, are infinite populations, creeping and winged things, whose spacious home is the broad sunshine ; so that, viewed from a favor- able standpoint, every nook and corner of the world, its cellars, garrets, lumbcr-moms. and all, seem to overflow with bu^iv uciignt or quiet happiness. Ikit who wnidd recognize in this kind and liberal moiiicr, 50 lavish of pleasures to her off- spring, the stern power that makes the Hves of whole races sheer miscr> : Can any one fancy what it must be to have habitual dread forming an clement of life, and transmitted through couniJcss generations till it finds expression in habits of viijilancc, of $iftilth, and of evasion, that wc take for peculiar instincts ? This pow- erof eommunicatin- the results of experience, and of circubting throughout a whole species the fear of a known evil, is one of the most in- explicable faculties of unreasoning and inartio- 46 Our Poor Relations. ulate creatures. A naturalist, well qualified to form an opinion, believes, we arc told, that the life of all beasts in their wild state is an exceed- ingly anxious one; that "every antelope in South Africa has literally to run for its life once in every one or two days upon an avera-e, and that he starts or gallops under the influence of a false alarm many times in a day." Our own fields and woods are full of proscribed creatures which must feel as if they had no business in creation, and only draw their breath by stealth vanishing in earth, or air, or water, at the shad- ow of an imagined enemy. In those lands of the sun where vegetation is most luxuriant, and food consequently most assured, there is yet a kind of privation as terrible as hunger. "At Koobe," says Livingstone, describing^his expe- riences in Africa, " there was such a mass of mud in the pond, worked up by the wallowin- rhinoceros to the consistency of mortar, tha° only by great labor could we get a space cleared at one side for the water to ooze through and collect in for the oxen. Should the rhinoceros come back, a single roll in the great mass we had thrown on one side would have rendered all our labor vain. It was therefore necessary Our Poor Relations. 47 for us to guard the spot by night. On these great flats, all around, we saw in the white sul- try glare herds of zebras, gnus, and occasionally buffaloes, standing for days, looking wistfully tovvards the wells for a share of the nasty wa- ter." And in other parts of the African conti- nent, when the fierceness of the summer has dried up the rivers, the amphibia, great and small, collect in uncongenial crowds in the pools left along the deeper parts of the channel ; and the land animals, the deer, the apes, the birds, stoop hastily and furtively to snatch insufficient draughts from the depths where lurk so many ravenous foes. Then, in colder lands, what wretchedness does winter bring — when the snow puts an end to the livelihood of all the tribes which seek sustenance on the earth, and the frost mocks the misery of those whose food IS in the marsh or the pool ! The frozen-out woodcock taps in vain for a soft spot in which to insert his slender bill — his larder is locked up and the key gone. Now and then comes a winter so sharp that the naturalist misses, next summer, whole species from their accustomed haunts. In one long frost all the snipe perished m parts of Scotland, and have never been plen- 48 Our Poor Relations. I; I tiful since. A rural poet, Hurclis, who caught no inconsiderable portion of Cowpcr's inspira- tion, has the following passage on the condition of birds in winter, which took such effect on our boyhood as to save many a blackbird and starling from our " resounding tube," and which, or. reading it again after the not brief interval now separating us from that golden time, still seems to us much more genuine poetry than many elegant extracts of far higher preten- sion : — (( Subdued bv hunc^er, the poor fcntherj tribes, bmal dread of man retain, though wounded oft, Oft slam, or scared by his resounding tube. Ihe fieldfare gray, and he of ruddier wing Hop o'er the field unheeding, easy prey To him whose heart has adamant enou-h To level thunder at their humbled race^ The sable bird melodious from the bou-h No longer springs, alert and clamorous? Short flight and sudden with transparent win- Along the dike performing, fit by fit Shuddering he sits in horrent coat outswoln. i^espair has made him silent, and he falls From his loved hawthorn of its berry spoiled A wasted skeleton, shot through and through «J the near-aiming sportsman. Lovely bird, ^o end thy sorrows, and so ends thy son-: Never again in the still summer's eve, " Or early dawn of purple-vested morn, Shalt thou be heard, or solitary song ' Whistle contented from the watery bou-h, Our Poor Relations. 49 What time the sun flings o'er the dewy earth An unexpected beam, fringing with flame The cloud immense, whose shower-shedding folds Have all day dwelt upon a deluged world : No, thy sweet pipe is mute, it sings no more." The picture which follows, and which less obviously aims at exciting sympathy, is none the less effective for that : — (t High on the topmost branches of the elm, In sable conversation sits the flock Of social starlings, the withdrawing beam Enjoying, supperlcss, of hasty day.' 'a How mournful for these poor starvelings the fact, apparently so insignificant, that the tem- perature has fallen below freezing-point ! What misery is approaching them in the leaden gloom of the north-east ! And in those circles of the earth where the reign of winter is prolonged, hunger is the inseparable associate of life, lying down with it in its shivering sleep, rising with it in its gloomy waking, and tracking its foot- steps always along the ice-bound circuit of its weary quest. But if the vicissitudes of climate are fraught with suffering, so are the vicissitudes of age. The infancy of many animals is as hel|5less as 4 so Our Poor Relations. babyhood. Few hired nurses, it is true, are so patient, so provident, so watchful, so untiring in care, as the dams, feathered or furred, who, in nest or lair, watch over their young. But then the lives of these guardians are terribly preca- rious, and innumerable are the orphans of the animal world. The boy with his snare or his stone — the gamekeeper with gin, or net, or gun — the watchful enemies who swoop from the air or spring from the ambush — are very apt to make the nurslings motherless. In how many an eyrie have sat gaping eaglets expec- tant of the broad food-bringing wings that will never more overshadow them — the said wings being then indeed outstretched on a barn-door, nailed there by that intelligent high-priest of nature, the keeper ! In how many burrows starve, before ever seeing the light, litters of young whose providers lie dead in the wood, or hang from a nail in the larder ! In how many nests of sticks, swaying on the pine-tops, scream the unfeathered rooks, while the old bird is suspended as a scare-crow in the distant corn-field! Every wet spring drowns in the holes they have never learnt to quit a multitude of small helpless creatures — every storm of \ \ \ Our Poor Relations. 3 1 early summer casts innumerable half-fledged birds prematurely on the hard world to cower, and scramble, and palpitate, and ^hunger, till in- evitable doom overtakes them after a more or less short interval. This perilous season of in- fancy past, however, the youth of animals is, compared with that of man, secure and brief;^ and their maturity is generally free from mor- bid or disabling accidents. But then comes the time of old age and decay -- old age such as man's would be if wanting all which Macbeth truly says should accompany it, in order to render its many infirmities tolerable — " honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." As the ac- tivity necessary to procure food diminishes, and the joints stiffen, and the flesh recedes, leaving to the bones the task of sustaining the wrin- khng skin, the sunshine grows less warm, the wind more bitter ; and if the worn-out creature is. neither made prey of by its enemies, nor put to death (as is the instinct of many races) by its friends, it withdraws to some secret spot to die in solitude. In this unprofitable stage of existence, the protection of man is accorded to domesticated animals on principles strictly com- mercial. Those which are expected to pay the ll 52 Our Poor Relations. expenses of their keep are pretty certain to find an execution put in by their inexorable creditors as soon as they become bankrupt of their services, and those only are suffered to live whose existence is matter of luxury. The old bullfinch is allowed to drop off his perch in the course of nature, and to pipe his own re- quiem — the old parrot dozes quietly away after forgetting half his phrases, and mixing up the rest in a confusion which may, perhaps, be his way of " babbling of green fields " — the old lapdog is recovered by medical aid out of many apoplexies before submitting to the final stroke — the old spaniel lives on to meditate on the happy hunting-grounds of the past, and per- haps to dream of those of the future ; but for the old horse (unless his master be rich as well as kind) there is no interval of rest in old age, wherein to prepare for those other pastures whither he may be hastening, or to reflect on the busy portion of his well-spent or ill-spent life. Necessity generally compels the owner to make an end of a life that will- not repay its maintenance. The veteran, " lagging superflu- ous on the stage," asks for bran and gets a bullet; it is only his corn that he wants Our Poor Relations. C3 bruised when the knacker arrives with the pole-axe. ' Perhaps no case of royalty in reduced circum- stances is so sad as that of the lion in his latter days. Frequent as are, in our times, the vicis- situdes of monarchs, neither the deposed Queen of Spain at Bayonne, nor the exploded Bomba in Rome, nor, to look farther back, Louis Phil- ippe appearing suddenly in this country as Mr. Smith, with a carpet-bag and cotton umbrella, IS so melancholy a figure of fallen greatness as' the Kmg of the Solitudes in his old age. The first stage of his decline is marked by the in- ability any longer to spring on the nimble ante- lope, or to cope with the sturdy buffalo ; and, agamst his better nature, the leonine Lear, still grand and imposing of aspect, but bereft of his power, is driven to watch for stray children gomg to the well, or old women picking sticks in the forest. It might be imagined that the sable philosophers of the bereaved tribe would regard this abduction of aged females as praise- worthy, or would at least consider the eating of them as a sufficient punishment for the offence Not so, however ; a lion once known as a man woman, or child eater, is by no means encour ' 54 Our Poor Relations. aged, even in Africa, in the indulgence of his tastes ; and what with constant interruptions, and the necessity for increased vigilance against his foes, he seldom enjoys a meal in peace. As his teeth fail and his joints stiffen, he is no longer able to capture the feeblest crone or to masticate the tcnderest virgin ; and in the " last stage of all that ends this strange eventful his- tory," he (as we learn from competent authority) catches mice for a subsistence, gulping them like pills, and ekes out the insufficient diet with grass. Imagine this incarnation of absolute power, this rioter in the blood of swift and pow- erful beasts, this emitter of the roar that causes all the hearts in the wilderness to quake, driven, in what should be a m,ajestic old age, to pick his own salc^ds and to turn mouser ! The num- ber of times that, with his large frame and cor- responding appetite, he must perform for each scanty meal the degrading act of watching for and pouncing on a mouse, must ultimately de- prave his whole character ; daily he must sink lower in his own esteem ; reformation and sui- cide are equally denied him ; till, happily, the savage who comes upon his track, knowing by signs that he has been forced to graze, knows Pajrt 54. ( Our Poor Relations. 55 also that his feebleness is great ; and findirg him not far off, stretched out beneath a bus^ in the sleep of exhaustion or the torpor of self- contempt, considerately hastens with his assagai to draw a veil over the painful scene. Were we to stop here, our disquisition would be little other than a Jeremiad — an empty lament for misfortunes without prospect of rem- edy -- a crying over spilt milk, which would be equally foreign to our natural character and our acquired philosophy. But evil as has been the hap of the animal world, there are visible signs of hope for it. Its relations with us are m^ni- festly aiKl rapidly improving, and this is owing to a manifest and rapid improvement in our- selves. Whether, amid all our boasts of the progress of the species, man has really succeeded in redressing the balance of good and evil in his nature, may be matter of unpleasant doubt. Sometimes, when a very reprehensible or lament- able failing of some vanished generation is set very pressingly before us — some horrid i)erse- cution, political or religious — some triumph of unreason — some huge injustice practised by a despot on a people, or by a people on them- selves,— we, being at the time, perhaps, in es- 56 Our Poor Relations. pccial good humor with the world around us, in which those particular evils are not possible, take heart, and would fain believe that humanity is getting on. But presently, when we notice how our contemporaries form what they imagine to be their convictions, what sort of idols they worship, what kind of progress it is which is least disputable, and of which they are most proud, we lose courage again, and feel as if man were doomed forever to revolve in the vicious circle of some maelstrom, some system inside of which all is delusion, while outside of it all is doubt. Surveying mankind with extensive view from the prehistoric ages to Parliamentary com- mittees on education, we fancy that we see much of our gain balanced by corresponding lose, and that we have made room for many of our most valued characteristics only by discard- ing qualities which have rendered whole races forever famous. As we grow more practical, we decry magnanimity — ceasing to be su- perstitious, we forget to be earnest — vigor, born of enterprise, is smothered in luxury — and the cuckoo science ousts the sparrow faith. But all the time, various as are the aspects of various ages, the elements of humanity remain Our Poor Relatio?is, 57 unaltered, however disguised by their chan^n^r vesture ; even as while the landscape shifts, in one period a wood, or swamp, or heath, in the next a farm or a city, the central fires are still glowing beneath, and still betray their presence at times in an earthquake or a volcano. Scrape a man of science, or a man of progress, or a man of fashion, a great statesman or a great general, and you still get a savage. But nevertheless, in striking the balance between old and new, there is an item that must stand to our credit abso- lutely, without deduction. Our relations with the races which share- the earth with us are so changed, and the change is still so progressive, that a new element would almost appear to have been developed in our nature. All the authors, not only of antiquity, but of modern times, down to a few generations ago, may be searched without the discovery of a dozen pas- sages indicative of that fellowship with our co- tenants of the globe which is now so common a feeling. That the good man is merciful to his beast -- that the ewe lamb of the parable drank of its owner's cup and lay in his bosom — that Chaucer's prioress was so charitable as to weep for a trapped mouse — that the poor 58 Our Poor Relations. beetle which we tread upon feels a pang as great as when a giant dies — that Dapple was the cherished friend of Sancho, — arc chief among the few cases which occur to us, where consideration for animals is implied in the best known books of the past. Princes and heroes have had their favorites, four-legged or feath- ered, hawk or horse or hound — and the cour- sers of Achilles, the dog of Ulysses, and the Cid's steed Bavieca, have their place in romance and in history ; but their favor was born rather of pride than of affection, and ihesc arc but slight instuiKcs to .set against .so many ages of mere chatteluge. Hut what a wealth of pleasant companionship do wc now enjoy in the society of those four -legged familiar.s without whnm no household .seems cumplcto ! and how largely do their representatives figure in the literature and art of the prcitcnt century ! the affectionate portraiture by jx^n and brush being both the natmal result of thai lituDirr feeling, and the means of rendering it dcepv : ' wider. Look- ing backward to ihc l^ginning of the vista of life througlji which wc have journeyed, iwc bw.>i- lovcd b<.)oks of our childhood were thotse in which regard for aniinaU wa?; directly or in- Our Poor Relations. 59 directly inculcated ; the indirect lesson being, however, much the most impressive. Thus when ^sop, desiring to satirize or instruct mankind through the medium of animals, represents his lions, dogs, foxes, monkeys, and cranes, as not merely conversing, but delivering didactic dis- courses, and holding political debates, it is im- possible for the reader who possesses the ardent faith and the plastic imagination which are the choicest endowments of childhood, not to invest real animals with some of the faculties imputed \o the creations of the fiOmlist. Fairy tales, too, resort largely to the animal world for nu- chinery ; and the grimalkin on tlie hearth-rug rises immensely in the estimation of the juve- nile student of - Puss in Rootsr a.s a possibte personator of the agent of the Marquis of Cara- bas, and an artful plotter, g^-atly sujxirior to mere men in the demising of stratagems The little bright-eyed nibbler^ behind the wain :..c have 5K)mcihing of •• the consecration and the poet $ dream " reflected on ihcm by the rhyroe_ ful ! Even with- If A%^ out such aid ^^-^^ ' we constantly, though uncon- sciously, ac- knowledge their kinship with humanity. In their simple, clear natures, undimmed by the breath of public opinion, unconfused by the effort to conform or to simulate, we see mir- rored our own virtues and vices. There are other proper studies of mankind besides man. The fox, the bear, the bee, the eagle, the lion. Our Poor Relations. 79 the hog, the serpent, the dove, are all types of men and women. Prophetic language calls the worm our sister ; and a philosopher of these times defines the Frenchman of the Revolu- tion as a '' tiger-ape." We have ourselves heard an indignant lady characterize a too insinua- ting swain as *' that crocodile ; " and lately, at a civic feast abounding in calipash and calipee, we observed, or fancied we observed, that many of the guests combined, as in Byron's line, '' the rage of the vulture" with the " love of the tur- tle." And do we not stand in almost humiliat- ing relation to the inevitable crow, who spends so much of his valuable time in imprinting his autograph on the corners of all our eyes, seem- ing thereby to mark us for his own .> Deeply impressed with the closeness and reality of these connections, and deriving no inconsidera- ble share of the enjoym.ent of life from our keen sense of them, it has been to us not only a pleasure but a solemn duty, often postponed, indeed, but never abandoned, thus to break ground in the corners of a great subject, and to record with pride the sentiments of affection and respect which we entertain for Our Poor Rei^ATIONS. J. E. TILTON & CO/S PUBLICATIONS. 11 GEEOIAN, EOMAN, SCANDINAVIAN, AND MEDIEVAL MYTHOLOGY. IN THREE VOLUMES. The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalrg^ Legends of Charleinagne, These volumes are ele;;antly illustrated, printed on laid tinted paper, and bound in muslin, lialf-calf, library, and full Turkey. Testimonials from sac'.i rources as t'.ie following will be sufiicient to attract attention to t'.ie examination of tlie works. /Vow J.VKiiJ) Si-AKKs. TX.D., niitor (f the Writivfjuif Wasliivgton and Franklin, and former J 'resident cf Harvard UnivcrsUy. CAMnumcE, Feb. 2r., 1SG3. Mi-ssr.s. J. E. TiLTON & Co., — I have i)erused with great Fatisfaction Hr. IJulfinch's three works, " The Age of Fable," " The Age of Chivalry," 12 J. E. TILTOX Si CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. and " Legends of Charlemagne." Tliey appear to me extremely well adapted to attain the object proposed by tlie author. They may be re- garded as a key to the literature of ancient and modern times, and especi- ally as illustrating the compositions of the distinguished poets of various countries and periods. The style is clear and concise, the incidents are well combined, and the stories are told in a manner that cannot fail to w'ia tlie attention and excite tlie reflections of the reader. Such being my opinion of these volumes, I will only add that they are peculiarly suited to the young, as furnishing the elements which will enable them to understand and appreciate the books to which their thoughts and leisure will be directed in their more ma*.ure years. Respectfully yours, JAUED SPARKS. From Georok R. Emersox, LL.r>., Member of the Massachusetts Hoard of Education, and Author of the " Jieport on the Forest-Trees of Massnchusetts,^^ printed by order of the Legislature. I have just read the " Legends of Charlemagne," a very delightful, and, though it is all fabulous, a very useful book. The stories are admirably well told, in language which, for delicate purity and unalTected simplicity, is a model for younjj writers to imitate. Tlie illustrations are spirited, and in excellent taste ; and the whole presentation of the work is most credit- able to the American press. This beautiful volume is a fit follower and companion of the excellent "Age of Fable" and "Age of Chivalry." Together tluy form t!ie best introduction that has yet appeared to the great and noble body of Engli.sh poetry. They will furnish abundant help to t:»e teacher and to tlie mother in ex- plaining allusions iu text-books, and in the more precious volume stored for leisure hours ; and henceforward no library can be considered tolerably complete which does not have on its shelves "The Age of Fable," "The Age of Chivalry," and the " Legends of Charlemagne." From Hon. William II. Skwai!I>, Secretary of State. I give you my sincere thanks for a copy of " The Age of Fable " whica you have sent to me. No liberal educition is complete without a knowl- edge of the mythology of the ancients. At the same time, the works de- voted to that subjoct, so f;;r as they have fallen under my observation, have been cither too purely diilactic for the perusal of general readers, or else so elabor.ite as to seem to exact more time than they could bestow. This work seems to avoid these inconveniences, and is, at the fame time, just such a one as the classical reader requires for reference. I trust tli;;t a liberal appreciation of it by the public will reward the author for th« talent and time bestowed upon it. .1. E. TILTON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 13 From Hon. Charles Sumker. Gentlemen, — I have enjoyed the three volumes of Mr. Bulfinch, " The Age of Fable," " The Legends of Charlemagne," "The Age of Chivalry," which seem to me written with knowledge, taste, and conscientious fidel- ity. They are books both for tlie young and the old. The young will find in them a key to poetry, and even to history, important to possess: the old will find in them a pleasant epitome of those stories which for ages have entered into the pastime of life. Whether at school, at home, or in the library, such books must be welcomed. Relieve me, gentlemen, faithfully yours, CHARLES SUMNEE. Messrs. J. E. TiLTON & Co. From the North- American Review. Tliese legends are of hardly less importance, in a literary point of view, than the cla.>sic mythology. Resides having been reproduced in various forms and in every generation, they are constantly the subjects of allu- sion and reference ; so that some accjuaintance with them is essential to every person who desires to understand even all that he is likely to read. Yet hitherto there has been no easily accessible manual of this mediaeval my- thology; and our knowledge of it has been acquired in miscellaneous ways, and by slow and uncertain stages. The want which was thus felt, though unexpressed, Mr. Rulfmch has supplied. His book has the double merit of being at once a manual of instruction in its own department of literature, and a rich collection of romances charmingly narrated. It bears the characteristics which his books must needs bear, —conscientious accuracy, pure taste, symmetricnl and graceful finish. His moral nature would not let him do any thing with less than his best ability ; and his ability is that of an accomplished scholar, a true poet in conception and Uncy (though we know not whether he has ever written verse), and a writer of exquisite re- finement and delicacy of thought and expression. The publishers have issued this book ia a form and style worthy of its merits, and have en- riched it with well-executed engravings and wood -cuts. We are glad to learn that tlie same publishers have issued, in a similar style of beauty, a new edition of Mr. RuUinch's "Age of Fable." Three volumes, new style, gilt top, sold only in boxes. Cloth ?^ ~5 Half-calf 15.00 Half-morocco 15.00 Morocco, antique .... -1.^'^ ^y^^' f ve\ct^\ov\s. !1 COLUMBIA III ml III II I lull III UNIVERSI I |I1M j ! HBti 11'" 3025050170