Introduction to the catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum.

  • John Duncan
Date:
[1826]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introduction to the catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    But some animals at first live in the water, but afterwards change their form and live out of it, as in the case of the grubs in rivers, for from these are produced the gadflies. Again, some animals remain always in the same place, others change their situation, of which the former are aquatic, for there is no land animal which remains without change of place: but many aquatic animals live entirely in a state of adhesion, as do many kinds of shell fish. The sponge also appears to possess a kind of animal sense; a proof of which is, that it is torn away from the spot to which it adheres with more difficulty when the attempt is not made with a degree of concealment, as some assert. Some animals at one time adhere, and at another are unattached, as is a par- ticular kind of that which is called the sea-nettle; for some of these are unattached, and feed by night. Many again are unattached, but without the power of motion, as oysters, and the fish called olothuria, (tubular fish.) Some move by swimming, as common fish, soft aquatic animals, (mol- lusca,) and those which have a soft shell, like that of the carabus; others walk, as do all kinds of crabs; for these, although in their nature aquatic animals, move by walking. Of land animals some are winged, as birds and bees, (which in other respects differ from one another;) others move on the surface of the earth, which latter are subdivided into those which walk, those which creep, and those which draw themselves along on the earth, (iKuan/xa-Tixa,) but there is no animal which only moves by wings, in the same manner as a fish is only capable of swimming; for even those whose wings consist of membrane, walk ; and the bat has feet, as has also the seal, although very short ones. And there is a kind of bird which has weak feet, which has from this cir- cumstance been called the apous, (swift,) as if it had no feet: but this little bird is very strong on the wing, and almost all birds like it are strong on the wing, but have weak feet, as the swallow, for instance, and the falcula, (sand martin;) for these birds are of similar habits, and have the same kind of wings, and in appearance are very like each other: of these the apous is seen at all seasons, but
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