猫眼电影小程序入口
猫眼电影小程序入口
ange themselves with a very ill grace under a subdivision of the order Carnivora. Placed, however, as they are at the end of that order, and immediately before the Rodentia, the regular gradations from the type of the former to that of the latter, which occur in their different groups, become most distinctly manifest.
Happily for mankind the range of this tremendous animal is limited to the warmer climates of the earth; and even in these the extent of that range is constantly becoming more and more confined by the spread of human civilization, which, at the same time that it drives him to take refuge at a distance from the haunts of men, contributes greatly to thin his numbers and to diminish his power of annoyance. His true country is Africa, in the vast and untrodden wilds of which, from the immense deserts of the north to the trackless forests of the south, he reigns supreme and uncontrolled. In the sandy deserts of Arabia, in some of the wilder districts of Persia, and in the vast jungles of Hindostan, he still maintains a precarious footing: but from the classic soil of Greece, as well as from the whole of Asia Minor, both of which were once exposed to his ravages, he has been utterly dislodged and extirpated.
The genus Macrocercus is characterized by the robustness of its beak, which is extremely broad and powerful; by the nakedness of its face, which is sometimes entirely bare, and sometimes partially covered with lines of short and scattered feathers; and by the size and form of its tail, which is longer than the body, regularly graduated, and terminating in an acute apex. The whole of the species are American, and are remarkable for the brilliancy of their colours, which are perhaps more varied and more gaudy than those of any of the other modern divisions of the Linnean genus Psittacus. They are consequently more sought after as objects of luxury and[218] elegance, and bear a higher comparative value than the rest of the Parrots. In common with the entire tribe, they inhabit the tropical regions of the earth, and live chiefly upon fruits and seeds. Among the latter they uniformly give the preference to such as are provided with a hard and shelly covering. These they crack with great dexterity, carefully reject
The animals at present in the Tower, the only individuals of this species that have been brought alive to Europe, were presented about four years since by the Hudson’s Bay Company, by some of whose hunters they had been trapped in the northern regions of America. A fine skin of the same species was brought home by the late overland expedition to those countries, under the command of Captain Franklin, and presented to the Museum of the Zoological Society. There is also another instance of its occurrence recorded in the capture of a solitary specimen, in the Missouri territory, by the party engaged in Major Long’s expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains. This specimen was accurately described, in the notes to the published narrative of that expedition, by Mr. Say, who at once recognised it as a[96] distinct species, and affixed to it the scientific name which we have adopted without hesitation for these animals, with the most striking peculiarities of which his description coincides in every essential
True it is that on some occasions the Lion has been known, in the capriciousness of his disposition, to suffer his prostrate prey to escape but little injured from his clutch; but these instances are of rare occurrence, and may safely be referred either to his natural indolence, when excited neither by hunger nor by provocation, or to that intellectual debasement which among brutes is[20] the usual concomitant of increased bulk and formidable strength. But to conclude from such whims and freaks, unaccountable as they may sometimes appear, that he is actuated by feelings of mercy, or by the natural impulse of a generous mind, would be about as reasonable as it would be to assume from the instances which are recorded of the justice and generosity of a Tamerlane or a Tippoo, that those monsters of sanguinary cruelty were in reality the mildest and most merciful of despots.
