[1] See my Omphalos,—passim.

[2] The gradual but constant elevation of the bed of the Baltic, and the subsidence of that of the Pacific Ocean, are examples on a large scale.

[3] Gen. x. 5.

[4] Chlamydotherium, Euryodon, Glossotherium, &c.

[5] Owen On the Mylodon.

[6] Perhaps the most complete and the most magnificent skeleton of this animal ever discovered, was exhumed in 1849 at Killowen, in Co. Wexford. It was buried only four feet below the surface, between the vegetable mould and plastic clay. The roots of the black willow and German rush had entwined themselves round the bones, and some seeds, ascertained to be those of the wild cabbage, were found in the same bed. The dimensions of the skeleton were as follows:—Height, 12½ feet to the tips of the horns, 7 feet to the top of the pelvis; expanse of horns 11 feet in a chord, or 13 feet 6 inches along the curve; palm of the antlers 2 feet 7 inches long by 1 foot 5 inches broad, some of the snags 2 feet 6 inches long; the face 1 foot 10½ inches in length.

[7] Annals of Nat. Hist. xv.

[8] Hist. Animals, xvi. 17.

[9] Nat. Hist. ix. 10.

[10] On the Mammoth or Fossil Elephant, &c. London, 1819.

[11] Testimony of the Rocks, p. 97.

[12] See vol. i. p. 361, supra.

[13] Latrobe's Mexico, p. 192.

[14] Nat. Voyage, ch. v.

[15] Nat. Voy. ch. viii.

[16] Compts Rendus, Jan. 27, 1851.

[17] Proc. Zool. Soc., Jan. 27, 1852.

[18] "The Humming-bird." Rather a vague mode of speaking, by a zoologist, of a genus which numbers more than three hundred species, varying in size from that of a swallow to that of a humble-bee. But probably he means one of the minuter species.

[19] Proc. Zool. Soc., Nov. 7, 1850.

[20] In the Times of Feb. 21, 1861.

[21] Proc. Roy. Soc., X. xxxv. 50.

[22] Ibid. IX. xxix. 133.

[23] Because comparatively few readers, and especially the critics, will take the trouble to ascertain what an author really means if he attempt argumentation, generally supposing him to be proving something else than he propounds to himself, it may be needful to say, that I am not touching the question of the time required for the formation of the stratified rocks in general, but solely for that of the later Tertiary deposits.

[24] Reports of Analysis, by Apjohn.

[25] Hart On the Fossil Deer.

[26] Zoologist, for 1846: Preface, p. 10.

[27] Mr Newman, op. cit. x.

[28] Geilt.—According to O'Reilly, this word means "a wild man or woman,—one living in woods,"—a maniac. It may, however, have been figuratively applied to some very fierce or untameable creature, either quadruped or bird, which inhabited the woods. But that the Simiæ, or monkey tribe, were not likely to have at any time inhabited so cold a country, one would have seen in the term an exceedingly apt expression for "the wild man of the woods." (Note by Translator.)

But, I venture to remind the reader, there was a veritable ape found in Britain during the very era of the Giant Deer, and of many of the now extant animals. I refer to the Macacus pliocænus (Owen) of the fresh-water deposits. Is it not just possible that the Geilt of Ireland, the first-named animal in the poem, may have been this species? A Macacus still lingers in Europe, though the elephants and hippopotamuses have long deserted us.

[29] Grib.—Probably the Osprey.

[30] These Wild Oxen are worthy of notice.

[31] The Toghmall was a bird kept as a pet. "When Cuchulain slung a stone at Queen Meave he killed the Toghmall that was sitting on her shoulder."

[32] Ruilech.—Unknown.

[33] Snag.—Probably the Crane, or one of the Heron tribe.

[34] Echtach.—From a legend attached to the locality, there is a possibility that these were a peculiar breed of horned cattle.

[35] Drenn.—Probably the Wren.

[36] Cainche—Unknown.

[37] Errfiach.—Unknown.

[38] Cricharan.—Possibly the Squirrel, or the Marten.

[39] Mr Curry says, "In the dictionaries Ormchre is the term for a leopard, but that animal did not exist in Ireland." But the caves of Britain shew that very formidable Felidæ roamed here in the Later Tertiary Era.

[40] Riabhog.—The "cuckoo's waiting-maid," a little bird, is still so called in the west of Ireland. In England the wryneck (Yunx torquilla) bears this office, and also in Wales, where Pennant says it is called Gwás y gog, which means the same thing.

[41] Peatans.—Conjectured to be Leverets.

[42] What is the difference between wild Boars and wild Hogs? The ransom, too, was to consist of a male and a female of each kind of wild animals.

[43] Fereidhin.—Unknown.

[44] See note [42] supra.

[45] Iaronn.—Unknown.

[46] Geisechtachs.—"Screamers;"—perhaps Peacocks. But is it likely that the Peacock and the Pheasant (vide supra) were imported from the East so early?

[47] Bruacharan.—Unknown.

[48] Naescan.—The Snipe may be meant.

[49] The term Spireog is still used in the locality referred to, and signifies the Sparrowhawk. It has, however, somewhat of a Saxon sound.

[50] Sgreachóg.—Conjecturally, Screech-owl; or Jay.

[51] Geilt Glinne.—See note [28] on p. 58.

[52] The Onchu has been mentioned before. See note [39] on p. 59. There were several kindred Felidæ in the Pliocene period. May the word refer to two of these bearing the same name, but the one distinguished by the term fleet?

[53] "Pigs" again! This is the fourth time. "Wild Hogs, wild Boars, Pigs, and yet Pigs." From the prominence thus given to the grunting race in the ransom, one is tempted to conclude that "'Twas the Pig that paid the rint," then, as now!

[54] Mr Wilde, in an interesting paper "On the Unmanufactured Animal Remains belonging to the Royal Irish Academy," read before the Academy on the 9th and 25th of May, 1859, to which I am indebted for the foregoing poem, cites the following legend, which we might have referred to the Megaceros, but that he appears to consider the animal in question the Red Deer or Stag:—"On another occasion St Patrick and his retinue, with Cailte MacRonain, came to the house of a rich landholder who lived in the southern part of the present County of Kildare, near the river Slaney. The farmer complained to Cailte that although he sowed a great quantity of corn every year, it yielded him no profit, on account of a huge wild Deer which every year came across the Slaney from the west when the corn was ripe for cutting, and, rushing through it in all directions, trampled it down under his feet. Cailte undertook to relieve him, and he sent into Munster for his seven deer-nets, which arrived in due time. He then went out and placed his men and his hounds in the paths through which the great deer was accustomed to pass, and he set his deer-nets upon the cliffs, passes, and rivers around, and when he saw the animal coming to the Ford of the Red Deer on the river Slaney, he took his spear and cast a fortunate throw at him, driving it the length of a man's arm out through the opposite side; and 'The Red Ford of the Great Deer' is the name of that pass on the Slaney ever since; and they brought him back to Drom Lethan, or 'The Broad Hill,' which is called 'The Broad Hill of the Great Wild Deer.'"

[55] The Editor of "The Indian Field;" in the Zoologist, p. 6427.

[56] The Welsh "Triads," supposed to have been compiled in the seventh century, say that "the Kymri, a Celtic tribe, first inhabited Britain; before them were no men here, but only bears, wolves, beavers, and oxen with high prominences." Were these Bisons?

[57] See Vol. i, 203, supra.

[58] This is the more interesting because it includes the Urus as well as the "Schelch," which latter, though the meaning of the word is not certain, some are disposed to identify with the Giant Deer of Ireland.

[59] See note [56] on p. 68.

[60] M.S. H. ii. 13.

[61] Blackwood's Magazine, January 1849.

[62] "Travels," 4th ed., 1677.

[63] Sloane MSS., No. 1839.

[64] Zoologist, p. 4298.

[65] British Birds, iii. 477, (Ed. 2.)

[66] Dr Charlton, in the Trans. Tyneside Nat. Hist. Soc.

[67] Nat. Voy., ch. ix.

[68] Lecture; reported in the Athenæum for May 21, 1859.

[69] Nat. Voyage, ch. viii.

[70] Mag. Nat. Hist., ii. 322.

[71] From the Times of Jan. 24, 1861.

[72] The Oscillatoria is a genus of plants; it is a microscopic Alga of wire-like form belonging to the great Confervoid family, having the remarkable peculiarity of spontaneous and apparently voluntary motion.

[73] Latrobe's Alpenstock, p. 12.

[74] Seemann's Isthmus of Panama.

[75] I am indebted for this note to the Rev. Leonard Jenyns. See his edition of White's Selborne, (1843) p. 66.

[76] Zoologist, pp. 6541, 6564.

[77] Ceylon, i. 211.

[78] Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vi. 465.

[79] Brit. Fishes, i. xxvii. Aristotle had long before given the same explanation.

[80] De Pisc. in siceo degent.

[81] De Piscibus.

[82] Siam, i. 144.

[83] Emb. to Siam, i. 10.

[84] Fishes of Guiana, i. 113.

[85] Annals N. H., May 1853.

[86] Tennent's Ceylon, ii. 498.

[87] Geog. and Classif. of Animals, 249.

[88] Egypt and Mehemet Ali, ii. p. 322.

[89] Japan and her People, p. 193.

[90] See Hibbert's Shetland Islands, p. 566.

[91] Miss Sinclair's Shetland.

[92] Notes to The Lord of the Isles.

[93] Hudson the Navigator, by Asher, Voy. ii.

[94] Voyage towards the South Pole, p. 143.

[95] Pontoppidan's Nat. Hist. of Norway, p. 154.

[96] Edinburgh Magazine, vol. xiii.

[97] Bell's Brit. Rept. (1839), 112.

[98] Zoologist, 614.

[99] Zool., 1879.

[100] Zool., 3632.

[101] Zool., 3808.

[102] Zool., 3848.

[103] Zool., 3904.

[104] Zool., 5959.

[105] Zool., 6537.

[106] Ibid., 6565.

[107] Richardson's Borderer's Table Book, iii. 92.

[108] Zool., 3266.

[109] Zool., 6941.

[110] Zool., 613.

[111] See page 183, ante.

[112] Zool., 4245.

[113] Phys. Theol., vii., Note d.

[114] Règne Anim., (Griffith's Ed.,) vii. 61.

[115] Phil. Trans., 1763.

[116] Letter x.

[117] Stanley's Fam. Hist. of Birds, p. 263.

[118] Edin. Journ., viii.

[119] In Pennant's Brit. Zool.

[120] Brit. Zool., App.

[121] Zool., 1136.

[122] Ibid., 2302.

[123] Zool., 2590.

[124] Letter xxxviii.

[125] Ibid. xii.

[126] Ibid. xi.

[127] Ibid. xxxi.

[128] Letter xxiii.

[129] Orn. Dict., Introd., xxvii.

[130] Zool., 5364.

[131] Brit. Birds, ii. 264.

[132] Zool., 2455.

[133] Ibid., 565.

[134] Ibid., 3753.

[135] Zool., 4945.

[136] Ibid., 4945.

[137] Zool., 4995.

[138] Ibid. 1639.

[139] Letter xviii., 2d ser.

[140] Zool., 565.

[141] Op. cit.; vol. ii. pl. 40.

[142] Brit. Rept., 51.

[143] Penny Cyclop., xxvi. 348.

[144] Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. for 1837, p. 441.

[145] Zool., 2305.

[146] Ibid., 2355.

[147] Zool., 7278.

[148] Captivity among the Indians.

[149] Zool., 2269.

[150] Introd. à l'Entom., ii. 143.

[151] Op. cit., viii. 163.

[152] Westwood's Mod. Classif. Ins., ii. 430.

[153] Introd. to Entom. Lett. xxv.

[154] Mag. Nat. Hist., New Ser., i. 353.

[155] Ibid., i. 553.

[156] Dr Boisduval, one hot evening in June, found caterpillars on grass which diffused a phosphorescent light; he thought them to be those of Mamestra oleracca—one of the most abundant of our moths—but they seemed larger than common; and whether owing to want of care in the rearing or to a condition of disease—which may, indeed, have been the cause of their luminosity—none of them attained the chrysalis state, and so the species was not absolutely decided.

[157] Introd. to Entom., loc. cit.

[158] Exped. into Int. of Brazil.

[159] Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 226.

[160] Probably we should read "diameter" for "circumference." A spider whose legs cover an area of six inches in circumference is by no means rare even in England.

[161] Journ. Asiat. Soc.

[162] Proc. Entom. Soc., November 1, 1852.

[163] Proc. Entomol. Soc., July 2, 1855.

[164] Peter Pilgrim.

[165] Hist. of Carolina.

[166] Amænit. Acad.

[167] Hist. of Carolina.

[168] Dahomey and the Dahomans.

[169] Visits to Madagascar, 231.

[170] Zoology of South Africa—Reptilia.

[171] Oiseaux d'Afrique.

[172] Times Newspaper, November 9, 1852.

[173] Zoologist, 7273.

[174] Zoologist, 7382.

[175] Quoted in the Zoologist, 2397.

[176] Pict. Museum, ii. 107.

[177] Reptiles, (Rel. Tr. Soc.,) 206.

[178] Bengal Sporting Mag. for Oct. 1836; cited in the Zoologist, 5070.

[179] Zool., 5214.

[180] Zool., 7273.

[181] Zool. 4049, 4050.

[182] Travels, 144.

[183] Psalm lviii. 4, 5.

[184] Jer. viii. 17.

[185] This is the Tuberose, a liliaceous plant, so commonly cultivated in our conservatories. It is generally stated to be a native of the East Indies, but the one spoken of by Tschudi, with a Peruvian name, must certainly be an indigenous plant of the country.

[186] The genus Mikania of Willdenow is one of the tubuliflorous Asteraceæ. M. guaco Humboldt mentions, under the name of Vijuco del Guaco, as being highly esteemed in South America as a valuable antidote against the bite of serpents. "Guaco" and "huaco" are the same word, the intensity of the aspirate varying among different peoples. The power of this Mikania is denied in the most positive terms by Hancock, who suspects that the real Guaco antidote is some kind of Aristolochia. The word "Vijuco" or "Bejuco," in Tropical America, signifies any climbing plant, and is equivalent to our florist word "creeper."

Eupatorium ayapana, belonging to the same order as Mikania, is a valuable repellent of the poison of venomous snakes. For this purpose it is used in Brazil. A quantity of the bruised leaves, which are to be frequently changed, is laid on the scarified wound, and some spoonfuls of the expressed juice are from time to time administered to the patient, till he is found to be free from the symptoms, especially the dreadful anxiety which follows the wounds of venomous reptiles. E. perfoliatum has a very similar action, and Mikania opifera is employed in the same way.—(Lindley's Veg. Kingd., p. 707.) These facts tend to confirm the accuracy of Tschudi and Humboldt against Hancock.

[187] Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela, vol. i., p. 43.

[188] Dahomey and the Dahomans.

[189] Several of the Aristolochieæ—plants generally having a very bitter taste, and a strong, pungent, disagreeable smell—are valuable alexipharmics. There is a plant very common in Jamaica, where it is called snake-withe, trailing over the stone fences, which I suspect to be an Aristolochia, and perhaps A. trilobata; it is employed as a sudden and potent sudorific, and as an antidote to serpent-bites in other countries, for in Jamaica there is no venomous reptile. The A. anguicida of Carthagena is described by Jacquin as fatal to serpents. He says that the juice of the root chewed and introduced into the mouth of a serpent so stupefies it that it may be for a long time handled with impunity: if the reptile is compelled to swallow a few drops, it perishes in convulsions. The root is also reputed to be an antidote to serpent-bites. "It is not a little remarkable," observes Dr Lindley, "that the power of stupefying snakes, ascribed in Carthagena to Aristolochia anguicida, should be also attributed to A. pallida, longa, bœtica, sempervirens and rotunda; which are said to be the plants with which the Egyptian jugglers stupefy the snakes they play with."

[190] Ceylon, i., 147.

[191] "On the Habits of the Viper in Silesia:" Zoologist, p. 829.

[192] Trav. to the Sources of the Nile, passim.

[193] Travels in the Levant, passim.

[194] Discov. in Africa, ii., p. 292.

[195] Lucan's Pharsalia.

[196] Ind. Field Sports.

[197] Mod. Egyptians.

[198] Zool., 6400.

[199] Beauties of Christianity.

[200] Note-book of a Naturalist, 202.

[201] Napier's Scenes and Sports, vol. ii., p. 227.

[202] Tennent's Ceylon.

[203] Rev. v. 11.

[204] Edwards's Voyage up the Amazon, 194.

[205] Travels on the Amazon and Negro, 222.

[206] Voy. à la Nouv. Guinée.

[207] Amer. Ornith.

[208] Edwards's Voy. up the Amazon, 143.

[209] Martial, xiii. 72.

[210] Windsor Forest.

[211] See Good Words for April 1861.

[212] Wordsworth.

[213] Wanderings in N. S. Wales, &c., ii. 43.

[214] Zool., 3060.

[215] Low's Sarawak, 87.

[216] Tennent's Ceylon, i. 250.

[217] Ellis's Visit to Madagascar, 313.

[218] Nat. Voyage, ch. xviii.

[219] Pöppig.—Nov. Gen. et Sp., i. 54.

[220] Lindley's Sertum Orchid.; pi. xxvi.

[221] Himal. Journ., ii. 58.

[222] Himal. Journals, i. 126.

[223] Low's Sarawak, 65.

[224] The writer by this term doubtless alludes to the panicles or heads compounded of many individual flowers; for the plant does not belong to the order Compositæ, but to Byttneriaceæ.

[225] Ellis's Madagascar, p. 390.

[226] Ellis's Visits to Madagascar, 57.

[227] Atkinson's Siberia, 472.

[228] Reinwardt.

[229] Tennent's Ceylon, i. 104.

[230] "Affinities of the Stylopites," in Zool., 1792.

[231] Wiegmann's Archiv., 1860, Bericht, p. 169.

[232] Ann. Nat. Hist. for April, 1861.

[233] Zool., 204.

[234] Ibid., 205.

[235] Zool., 2589.

[236] Newman, Hist. of Insects, 50.