In turning over the voluminous records of our travels abroad, we pause more particularly at those passages of our journals which relate to the study of Natural History. In these occur frequent references to agreeable pedestrian rambles undertaken alone, or in the company of unaffected friends, in France and Switzerland, Italy and its islands: of whole days spent, and twilight at last surprising us still bending over the unexplored treasures of unexhausted museums. Of Paris winters cheerfully passed in the enceinte of the class-rooms of the Sorbonne; of pleasant occasions in which our ears refused to take cognisance of the sound of town clocks and dinner bells, while our eyes were so agreeably forgetting themselves amid the profusion and variety of southern fish and bird markets. On this, if on any portion of our by-gone life, we look back with sadness indeed, but with a sadness unembittered by regrets; our only sorrow here being, that we knew not earlier in life those studies of which it may be pre-eminently said, that while they "delight abroad they hinder not at home." Happy indeed are the children who dream of butterflies, and wise the parents who encourage theirs to intertwine objects of natural history with their earliest associations! Not only has this charming study a strong tendency to confirm the health, to embellish the mind, and to improve the moral character of those who pursue it; "Pour le bien savourer, c'est trop peu que des sens; it is likewise a strong bond of union between man and man—where shall we find such another? Hounds and horses "Before such merits all objections fly, The officina was a curious place, and worthy of its mistress. It was something between a shambles, a museum, and a tanyard, and exhaled in consequence the mixed effluvia of decomposing flesh, alcohol, tannin, and the oil of petroleum. In one corner stood a large tawny dog, stuffed, and fixed to a board, with a new pair of eyes in his head, and his mouth well furnished with grinders. "Era molto vecchio questo cane," going up to introduce him to our notice, and patting his back affectionately: "his sockets have not had such eyes in them for many a day, nor his jaws such teeth. I have strengthened his legs with wire, and restored the proper curl to the tail; nothing further is now lacking but some tufts of hair to cover these bare patches on his haunches, when his master will at once recognise unaltered the favourite of fourteen years ago." "And whence the supplies necessary for your purpose?" "From this," replied she, drawing out from under the table a skin of the same tawny colour, "Eccola," and then pinching off with her tweezers a small tuft from the supplementary hide, and gumming over with a camel's hair brush, a bare spot, she proceeded to cover it. "And what's your remedy here?" said we, laying our hand upon a large duck,[3] whose glossy grass-green neck had lost much of its plumage, especially at the base, where it is wont to be, encircled with a cravat of white feathers. "By robbing others of the same family: for I always think a bird, while he lacks any of his feathers, is looking reproachfully at ''Tis cruel to look ragged now I'm dead; But here are my stores;" and, touching a spring, the door of a small room opened, and revealed unstuffed skins of all sorts, dangling from strings like Fantoccini near the Sapienza, at Christmas-time. "Yonder is a bird, Annetta, that shot across our path yesterday in the villa Borghese; was he not then a foreigner of distinction escaped from the prince's aviary?"—"No; a Campagna bird, but rare;" and she proceeded to display his lapis-lazuli wings, which shone like burnished armour, and were set off by a brilliant edging of black feathers, as polished as jet, while the back was a rich dark brown, and the neck and breast light azure. "Oh! stuff us one of these birds, pray!"—"Non dubitate, one shall be on his perch expecting you when you return to Rome in November."—"And we must have, too, that beautiful neighbour of his who wears a short silk spencer over his back and shoulders, and a full-breasted waistcoat of buff."—"The Alcedo Hispida: he shall be ready too; they call him hereabouts, 'Martin the Fisher.'" We took leave for the time, but frequently returned to the workshop. On one occasion, we asked Cadet how she attained such skill in taxidermy? "Our art," she replied, "like yours, consists mainly in observation, and therefore it must needs come slowly. In fact it has taken my mother and myself fifteen years to learn the natural instincts, habits, and attitudes of the birds and beasts of the Roman Fauna; every summer we visit their haunts, and bring back such specimens as we may catch or as the peasants, who all know us, may bring. Thus, we return, ever richly laden, sometimes with the carcass of an eagle, or it may be of an African Phenicopterus; or, failing in such large game, we are tolerably sure of porcupines, fine snakes, a nest of vipers, specimens of our three several kinds of tortoises, and different species of land crabs; to say nothing of the Tarantulas, Scholias, and Hippobosques, which I pin round my bonnet, or pop into spirits of wine. As to stuffing—the witnessing how some, who call themselves naturalists, stuff birds, has been long as a beacon to me! They really seem to forget, that it is one thing to prepare a goose for the spit, and another to fill his skin for the museum; they cram whatever they have in hand, as Fuocista Beppo crams a sky-rocket to repletion. Few take the natural shape as a model for the embalmed body. In such hands, sparrows become linnets, owls appear to have died of apoplexy, kestril eyes shine in Civetta's sockets, and the jackdaw has a pupil like the vulture. Then in grouping, they make all to look straight forward, as if, when a hawk has swooped upon a teal, his eyes did not turn downwards in the direction of his victim, or those of the poor teal upwards, in the direction of the expected blow; he too, should be represented as striving to extend his neck beyond the drooping screen of the other's impenetrable wing. Then birds of prey should not perch like barn-door fowls, nor a parrot divide his toes before and behind unequally; yet some taxidermists there are, who consider these things trifles!" "Well, sir, what do you think of my daughter's stuffing?" said the old woman. "Why, that she stuffs beautifully, but the smell of those old hides in the corner makes me sick." Whereupon they both laughed out at our affectation. "A doctor, and made sick!" said they, and they laughed again. "Have you heard of the Brazilian consul's lion?" interrogated the daughter, endeavouring to make us forget our sickness by exciting our curiosity. "No; nor even that he had a lion." "Oh, tell the story to the Signor Dottore, mother!" said the girl; "I can't for laughing." Upon which the old woman, summoning to her aid a ludicrously solemn look, prefaced the anecdote by supposing "We must know the Brazilian consul?"—"Not even by name."—"In that case we were to understand that he was by nature a man of great tenderness of character, but had once been chafed into an act of extraordinary ferocity, killing with his own hand, during the last year of his consulate, (but unfortunately, like Ulysses, without a witness,) a lordly lion: as there was "Hic sinuosa volumina versat, The delusion as to the substance and weight of the bird was perfect. At first we doubted being able to lift him without considerable effort. On making the attempt, however, we find him light as a Nola jar. A glorious bird is the eagle, well worthy the attention and regard bestowed on him in ancient times by prophet, priest, and poet; but had they been silent, we should have learned the veneration in which he was popularly held by the frequent recurrence of his image—whether incised on Egyptian obelisk, chiselled by Grecian hands on ornamented casque, guarding the tombs of heroes, grasping the thunderbolts of colossal Joves, perched on Latin, standards, carrying off young Ganymedes One day, meeting the elder Cadet in the street returning alone from the bird-market—a very unusual occurrence, for they generally hunted in couples—we asked after the daughter, and hearing she was ammalata assai, and wanted one of our little pills to set her to rights, turned in with the mother, and found the young naturalista reclining on an ill-stuffed bergÈre, with a large Coluber coiled round her temples, and a half-prepared Hoopoe in her hand. In the same apartment were a vulture picking an old shoe to pieces under the belly of an Esquimaux dog, and some little land-tortoises nibbling away at a large lettuce in the middle of the floor. Our inquiries were somewhat embarrassed by the unusual circumstances of our patient, particularly by the presence of the snake, which now began to untwist. "See! he has recognised his master," said the dame: "or perhaps has raised his head with a view of taking part in the consultation." We had seen snakes entwining the lovely brow of Medusa, in marble, cameo, and intaglio—painted snakes in clusters hissing in the hair of the Eumenides—but a living snake wound round living temples we had never seen till to-day. "Come, sir, you are only the snake to Esculapius; and though I am not ungrateful for what you have done in refreshing my hot forehead with your cool skin, now the doctor is come, bon giorno!" and, removing him like a turban from her head, she placed him in a box at her side. This was, then, that Epidaurian Coluber which we had so frequently seen in marble effigy wound round the consultation cane of the God of Physic,[6] and not to be viewed by us alive for the first time without interest. "Mother," said the younger Cadet, brightening up when she perceived this, "bring our snake-boxes, and let us show them all to the dottore." In less than five minutes the cases were before us. The first contained a mother blind-worm and her viviparous family of ten offspring, not two inches long, while she stretched to about twelve. A Coluber Natrix inhabited the second. "He is a great favourite with children in Sardinia," said Cadet, "twisting himself round their arms, and sucking milk from their mouths; but if these supplies fail, he feeds on frogs and fish. His flesh is a sovereign remedy, say our doctors, in skin diseases; and they also say—but you know best how true this may be—that one of the late Dukes of Bavaria became a father by merely eating fowls that had been fattened on them." A Coluber Austriacus followed—a rare snake, and chiefly remarkable for his pleasant herbaceous smell, very unlike what proceeded from a neighbouring box, holding a Coluber Viperinus, who secretes, when irritated, a yellow fluid of intense foetor, like the mixed stinks from asafoetida and rotten eggs. The specimen in this box was large. It had vomited, we were told, two frogs the day after its capture; and on cutting open another of the same species, Annetta had seen a living toad creep, Jonas-like, from the paunch, and make the best of three legs to escape, the fourth being already disposed of, and digested in the body of the serpent. The solitary Coluber Atro-virens passed next in review. She gave him a character for preferring good cheer to the best company, ex gr.—Out of two taken last week, one only survived; the other devoured his friend in the night, and next morning they found his enormously distended body dilated almost to transparency, and palpitating under the feeble movement of the victim, doubled up in his inside, but not yet dead. Being very exclusive, some call him "il milordo;" others, from Snakes are not so plentiful about Rome as farther south. Terracina in particular swarms with them, as did its ancient predecessor Amycle, which was once nearly depopulated by them. Their chief haunt hereabouts is two miles beyond the Porta Salara, at a place called Serpentina, on the opposite side of the Tiber, and nearly in front of the embouchure of the Cremara. At last we come to the family viper box, which perhaps we "would like to peep into with our gloves on?" "Per Carita, no," said we seizing the naturalista's hand—"on no account—a bite would be no joke!" Cadet laughed, observing that curiosity should not be baulked by timidity for a trifle.—"A trifle! had she ever been bitten, then?" "Come? sicuro ogni anno." It was of familiar occurrence: the part would swell, be stiff and sore for a couple of days, but that was all. Fontana found that it required four large and very angry vipers to kill a dog—of course it must require as many to kill a man. As to the Egyptian Queen's death being caused by a viper's bite, that question having been properly ventilated (ventillata) by Professor Lancisci, might be considered as set at rest. One viper could not kill one person, much less three; and we might remember that Cleopatra's memorable asp is said to have bitten two maids of honour, NeÆra and Carmione, before it came to her turn, by which time the poison must have been expended and the viper's tooth dry. "Two things," added she, "I have noted about vipers; one regards the parturient viper, and is to the effect that, a prisoner, she never survives her confinement many days; long before the quarante jours y compris l'accouchement[7] are over, she has ceased to be a mother and a viper. The other regards her progeny, and is this; that young viperlings come into the world in full maturity of malice, offering to bite as soon as their mouths are open, and flying at each other when they have no other society to attack. We have five varieties in Rome." "Is the viper deaf, Cadet?" "You should read the experiments of Peter Manni, a great friend of ours who tames snakes; these will completely satisfy your curiosity on this point:" and she fetched us the work of Manni, in which he gives curious account of the influence exercised upon several varieties of the species by the sound of a pianoforte, and afterwards goes on to relate the effects produced upon the same serpents by electricity and light. "The Viper," says he, "was impassive to the second of these agents, suffering a lighted candle to be brought close to his eyes before he turned away his head; of the harmless snakes, Coluber Esculapius came up to look at a lighted torch, but, finding it too strong for him, gnashed his teeth and bolted; Coluber Elaphis bore the heat of a lighted candle in his mouth with apparent indifference; but the Coluber Atro-virens flew at it in a passion, snapping and biting while he struggled to retreat; he also appeared most distressed under the application of slight electric shocks, from which indeed all the snakes suffered, and the smaller ones died." The action of some poisons upon snakes is similar to that on our own economy. For instance, on administering half a grain of strychnine to a full-grown Coluber Atro-virens, four minutes elapsed before, any change was visible. During this period the snake moved in the hand with his usual vivacity; the flesh then began to grow rigid under the finger; and in half a minute, the whole body, with the exception of three inches of What various and even opposite qualities, owing to the supposed versatility of his character, have been ever attributed to the serpent! Viewed as fancy dictated, under different phases, men were not content to ascribe to him their vices only, but must also attribute to him most of their moral excellencies: wisdom, prudence, vigilance, fortitude and sobriety were all his; he was symbolical of the divine nature, of eternity, and of youth. Long before viper broth was used in medicine, the Coluber was at Hygeia's side by the fountain of health, and was twined round the stick of Esculapius, at once silent and expeditious in his motion. Harpocrates favoured, and Mercury the Olympic messenger employed him as his deputy; though victim on one occasion to the archery of Apollo, the god of verse found something in his —————"winding 'bout so akin to poetry, (particularly to the kind called epic,) that he took an additional cognomen (Pythius) out of compliment to him; whilst Alexander and Augustus, those worthy descendants of Jove (whom he is said to have befriended in his amours), stamped his image on their coins, and assumed it as their crest. So far we behold him in favour both with gods and men: but opinions vary, applause is inconstant; and accordingly we equally find him charged with envy, hatred, malice, hypocrisy, ingratitude, cruelty, and almost every other vice. He is also accused of devastating towns, of usurping islands,[8] of impeding armies,[9] of destroying priests at the altar, and it is certain that he lent his name to heresy, and permitted the great Heresiarch to assume his form in order to beguile Eve. |