Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1866
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![begged tliat a servant might he sent to find the otlier Pog, who made no difficulty about performing the task. He was taken out after a while, and his refractory partner put in, who l)egan, now that his sense of justice was satisfied, to work in liis wheel with thorough good will, like a squirrel in a cage.* A similar incident was related by M. de Liancourt to the great Arnauld, who had adopted the theory of Descartes, that Dogs were automatons and machines. “ I have two Dogs,” said M. de Liancourt, “ who turn the spit on alternate days. One of them hid himself, and his partner was about to be put to turn in his place. He barked, and wagged his tail as a sign for the cook to follow him, went to the garret, pulled out the truant, and worried him. Are these your machines % ” The great Arnauld, mighty in controversy and redoubtable in logic, must have had a latent consciousness that the turnspit had refuted him.” The origin of our domestic Cat has been much disputed. Dr. Ruppell maintains that all our varieties of the domestic Cat were derived from one species, which is yet wild in Hubia, and ap|)ears to have been the parent of the common Egyptian house-cat. Fischer maintains the domestic Cat of Europe to be of a different si:)ccies. Temminck, after ad- mitting the Egyptian sj^ecies as the common ancestor of our house-cats, adds that probably the admixture of the Egyptian race with the wild one of our forests may have given rise to * The contrivaiico was simply as follows : the wheel was inclosed in a circular box, and connected liy a chain round the wheel end of the spit. The dog, on being put iiito the wheel, turned it as the .squirrel does his wheel, and thus the spit was kept turning. In the kitchen of the ancient castle of St. Hriavel, on the edge of the Forest of Dean, a few years .since, might be seen this contrivance for the dog to turn the spit. For this ]mrpose poor boys were ])rcvionsly hired; though they sometimes “licked the dripping-pan, and grew to be huge, lusty knaves.”](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28127420_0042.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
