The treasury of natural history, or, A popular dictionary of zoology / by Samuel Maunder.
- Maunder, Samuel, 1785-1849.
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The treasury of natural history, or, A popular dictionary of zoology / by Samuel Maunder. Source: Wellcome Collection.
785/856 (page 763)
![£>upj)lcmrnt. 7G3 fishes, found in a fossil state in the old red sandstone. The head of this was covered with bony plates, which were fretted with star-like tubercles, whence the name (aste- rolepis, i. e. star-scales); the body was covered with bony scales which were beau- tifully sculptured. Mr. Hugh Miller, who bus tuken the Asterolopis as the subject of an admirable volume, in which he contro- | verts the views of creation propounded in the “ Vestiges of Creation,” remurks on these I scales : ** I have seen a richly inlaid coat of mail, which was once worn by the puissant Charles the Fifth: hut its elaborate carvings, though they belonged to the age of Benvenuto Cellini, were rude and unfinished, compared with those which fretted the armour of the Asterolepis.” The fish was of large size, equalling in that respect a large Porpoise, and sometimes attaining much greater di- mensions. Mr. Miller believed that its verte- bral column was cartilaginous, like that of the sturgeon, while its outer covering was composed, as in the Lepidosteus of America, and the Polypterus of the Nile, of strong plates and scales of solid bone. Its teeth partook of the characters of both the fish and reptile classes: the outer row being thickly set as in the fish, while the inner row was i thinly set as in the reptiles, j ^ Remains of this curious fish occur at Stromness, and at other places in the Orkney i Islands. j A VICULARIA. A term applied to cer- tain peculiar developments generally at- tached to the cells of the polypidoms, in that class of zoophyte-like molluscs termed Pobjzoa or Bryozna. These uppendages are of two kinds, namely, the bird’s-heud pro- cesses or Avicularia, properly so called, and the vibrating filaments, or Vibracula. The former bear a striking resemblance to a bird’s head, having parts severally called the body, hinge, and stalk, and beiiig also furnished with a special moveable piece, which exhibits the characteristic shape us well as action of the lower jaw of the wide-eaping Goat- suckers (Cupri/nulgvJcc). The Vibracula dis- play a less complicated structure, consist- ing of a simple filament which is set in con- stant motion by contractile substance lodged within a tubular portion on which it rests. [See Bisyozoa, in this Supplement.] BALiENICEPS REX. The scientific names given by Mr. John Gould. F.R.S., to a remarkable bird closely allied to the Storks and Herons. It is better known by the English titles of the Khoebird and Whale-headed Stork. In the yeur 1800 an indefatigable naturalist. Mr. Petherick. H.M. I Vice-Consul at Khartoum, attempted to j transmit to this country from the Nile a | most valuable collection of rare animals, consisting of three African Elephants, a j young male Hippopotamus, u Monkey (Colo- f/ua), two Rhinoceroses, and eleven birds ; I but out of all these only the Hippopotamus and two Whale-headed Storks, reached Eng- ' land alive, and both the birds have since died. The Balamieeps. dead specimens of which were first brought to Europe by Mr. Mansfield Parkyns in 18.>0, is an inhabitant | of the Upper or White Nile. The most extraordinary feature of this bird has re- ference, as the generic name implies, to the singular form and hulk of the bill, which is much longer than the head, and shuped like ! an inverted shoe or boat. By the Arabs the ' Balamieeps is known by the name of “ Abou I makouh, which means literally the “ father of the shoe.” At first Mr. Gould was in- clined to regard this bird ns a kind of Pelican, whilst other ornithologists thought it most closely ullied to the Boutbill properly ho cu led, a South American bird, which exhibits a similar form of beak. The latter, however, is a much smaller bird, and is moreover fur- nished with a curiously pectinated claw at- tached to the middle toe, besides exhibiting other characters which render it distinct. [See the art. Boatuill, p. 79.] The living specimens formerly in the Zoological Gar- dens were hatched under hens at Khartoum, a town situate at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, the eggs having been obtained by Mr. Petherick’s hunters ‘‘from nests of I this bird found in the reedy marshes of the I regions traversed by the upper branches of the White Nile.” As already hinted, the ! affinities of the Bulieniceps have been made the subject of considerable discussion ; but the question seems now pretty well set at rest,especially since the reading of a paper before the Zoolugicul Society by Mr. A. D. Bartlett, who finds a curious confirmation of the view above udvoeated in the circum- stance that the so-called “ powder-down patches” are less complicated in Balamieeps than in Cancroma, in which respect the Herons form an intermediate type. The Shoebirds have only one pair of these “ patches,” as also occurs in Eurypyya (an aberrant form of Heron); the Bitterns have two pairs, the true Herons three puirs, und the Cancroma, or Boutbill proper, four pairs. Seeing the curious results thus ob- tained, ornithologists would do well to fol- low up Mr. Bartlett's interesting observa- | tions, and, in all future determinations of affinity, pay due regard to the form, number, and arrangement of the hitherto little- regarded “ powder-down patches.” B AL..ENODON. A genus of extinct whales whose fossil remains are found in a very fragmentary condition, in the red erug deposits of Suffolk. Portions of ribs, entire teeth, and ear-bones (eetotolites), all bearing evidences of being much water- worn, are the principal indications of the former existence of these huge leviathans of the deep. They ore constantly associated with those phosphate nodules (cops, or coprolites as they are erroneously called) which occur so abundantly in these strata ; and one not unfreqiientlv finds them im- bedded in a pseudo-coprilitic mass, forming a kind of nucleus for the concretion. The whule-ear-stones, to which Prof. Owen ap- propriately gave the name of “ Cetotolites,” form the harder portion of the entire ear- bone (petro-tympanic), the two elements having alwavs been rudely lorn from each other by the rubbing, rolling, and erosion of oceanic currents. They exhibit the ehu-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24864201_0785.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
