Bucephalus

“ Bucephalus and old Ben Bowline were in the boat, the old sailor hailing them when he neared the shore.
"Well, mateys, did you think you'd walk out to the yacht?" he asked. "The old man was afraid you'd fallen in, and been gobbled up by sharks. Some of the boys found the boat adrift, and brought it in. Don't you know how to tie up a boat yet? I'll show you some knots if you don't know them."
"We know all the knots you can show us, Ben, and perhaps a good many more," grunted Percival. "The boat was tied all right, but——"
"Wha' was yo' goin' to say, sah?" asked Bucephalus. ”

“ Paul Revere is shouting it at every door, as Bucephalus bears him swiftly on. The farmers spring from their beds, peer through their window-panes into the darkness,—seeing a vanishing form, and flashing sparks struck from the stones by the hoofs of the flying horse. Once more across the Mystic on to Menotomy, past the meetinghouse and the houses of the slumbering people, up the hill, along the valley, to Lexington Green; past the meetinghouse, not halting at Buckman’s tavern, but pushing on, leaping from his foaming steed and rapping upon Mr. ”

“ Take, for example, the common English name of this low-flying falcon, the most tamable and affectionate of his tribe, and therefore, I suppose, fastest vanishing from field and wood, the buzzard. That name comes from the Latin "buteo," still retained by the ornithologists; but, in its original form, valueless, to you. But when you get it comfortably corrupted into Provençal "Busac," (whence gradually the French busard, and our buzzard,) you get from it the delightful compound "busacador," "adorer of buzzards"—meaning, generally, a sporting person ”

“ So long as he was engaged in drawing up his men, or riding about to give orders or directions, or to view them, he spared Bucephalas, who was now growing old, and made use of another horse; but when he was actually to fight, he sent for him again, and as soon as he was mounted, commenced the attack. ”

“ Amongst other things, I killed my first bushbock, an animal of which the yellowish-tan skin is marked with white stripes, the lines so [Pg 255] arranged as if they were a regular harness. There is always to be observed some difference or other between each of these creatures and all its fellows; they are never precisely alike; either there will be some spot or speck, or stripe, which is peculiar to each, and distinguishes it from all the rest. The specimens of the bush-bock that I saw were always solitary; and it would seem to be more timid than any other species of antelope. ”

“ Osteocephalus verrucigerus has a nearly uniform dark brown dorsum and no distinct transverse bars on the limbs, whereas all of the other species have distinct bars on the limbs. The dorsal markings on the body consist of irregular blotches in buckleyi, pearsoni, and taurinus but are narrow transverse marks in leprieurii. A narrow middorsal cream or yellow stripe is present in some individuals of buckleyi and taurinus but absent in all individuals of the other species. The flanks are uniform pale tan in leprieurii and uniform reddish brown in verrucigerus ”

“ Osteocephalus verrucigerus can be distinguished from other members of the genus by its uniformly dark dorsum, heavily mottled venter, and large, spinous tubercles on the dorsum in males.
Distribution.—Lower Amazonian slopes (500-1840 m) of the Andes and on the western fringe of the Amazon Basin in Ecuador and Perú; one locality (Acevedo) in upper Río Magdalena drainage in Colombia (Fig. 9) . 40 specimens from 13 localities.
Remarks.—In life the dorsum in males is dull olive-green; the groin, anterior and posterior surfaces of the thighs, inner surfaces of limbs, and upper arms are dark brown. ”

“ Trachycephalus is the most readily identifiable of the four genera under discussion. Members of this genus are large frogs with heavily casqued and co-ossified skulls (Trueb, 1970a) . The dermal roofing bones bear ornate and characteristic patterns of sculpturing. The medial ramus of the pterygoid does not articulate with the otic capsule, and the parasphenoid alae are laterally, rather than posterolaterally, oriented. A dermal sphenethmoid is present, and the parasphenoid bears odontoids. The basic structure of the skull has many characters in common with both Osteocephalus and Phrynohyas. ”

“ Schaafhausen and Fuhlrott pointed out that the depression of the forehead was not due to any artificial pressure, as the whole skull was symmetrical, and that the individual must have been distinguished by an extraordinarily small cerebral development as well as uncommon corporeal strength. Professor Huxley considers this Neanderthal skull to be the most ape-like one he ever beheld, and Busk, a great authority, gives valuable reasons for supposing it to be the skull of an individual occupying a position midway between the man and the gorilla or chimpanzee. ”

“ The whole crew became dolphins and swam about the ship, now upon the surface, now under it, scattering the spray, and spouting the water from their broad nostrils. Of twenty men I alone was left. Trembling with fear, the god cheered me. 'Fear not,' said he; 'steer towards Naxos.' I obeyed, and when we arrived there, I kindled the altars and celebrated the sacred rites of Bacchus."
Pentheus here exclaimed, "We have wasted time enough on this silly story. Take him away and have him executed without delay." Acetes was led away by the attendants and shut up fast in prison ”

“ At the ape-man's side lay his long, grass rope. Quickly Bukawai bound the limp arms behind his prisoner's back, then he raised him to one of his shoulders, for, though Bukawai was old and diseased, he was still a strong man. The hyenas fell in behind as the witch-doctor set off toward the cave, and through the long black corridors they followed as Buckawai bore his victim into the bowels of the hills. ”

“ When I took occasion to bring some of the new specimens under Mr Busk’s attention, he at once recognised them as referable to the species he had long ago discovered.
The earliest literary notice of Distoma crassum appeared in Dr Budd’s classical treatise ‘On Diseases of the Liver;’ and in it the author correctly stated, from data supplied by Mr Busk, that these human flukes were “much thicker and larger than those of the sheep,” being, it is added, from “an inch and a half to near three inches in length.” ”

“ Brachycephalus ephippium in Brazil, the only species, is remarkable for the development of a broad dorsal shield of bone, which is fused with the processes of the second to seventh vertebrae, an ossification which strongly resembles that of several species of the likewise Brazilian Ceratophrys, a genus of the Cystignathinae. ”

“ Idiotcy is compatible with very various forms and capacities of the cranium, but I know of none which present the least resemblance to the Neanderthal skull; and, furthermore, I shall proceed to show that the latter manifests but an extreme degree of a stage of degradation exhibited, as a natural condition, by the crania of certain races of mankind.
"Mr. Busk drew my attention, some time ago, to the resemblance between some of the skulls taken from tumuli of the stone period at Borreby in Denmark, of which Mr. Busk possesses numerous accurate figures, and the Neanderthal cranium. ”

“ Osteocephalus buckleyi is further distinguished by the presence of narrow transverse processes on presacrals five through eight (Fig. 7b) ; males have narrower processes than do females. The processes are moderately wide but subequal in width in pearsoni, taurinus, and verrucigerus, whereas they are nearly equivalent in width to one another and to the sacral diapophyses in leprieurii (Fig. 7a) . The sacral diapophyses of all species are moderately dilated and posterolaterally inclined. The coccyx bears a distinct dorsal ridge and has a bicondylar articulation with the sacrum. ”

“ Because females generally are the larger in circumference posteriorly, they could have more scale rows than males just anterior [447] to the anus. The few snakes having more than 21 scale rows in the posterior region offer no conclusive evidence as to tendencies, but in both instances in which this occurred the females outnumbered the males three to one. An odd, rather than an even, number of scale rows occurs on most of the length of the snakes examined, because there is a mid-dorsal row and scale rows tend to be lost on both sides at about the same level. ”

“ The eloquent and ingenious Buffon was of opinion that the Phocæ approached to fish by a still more decisive criterion. “They are the only animals,” says he, “which have the foramen ovale open, and which can therefore live without respiring, and to whom water is as proper and suitable an element as air.” Theoretic views appear to have here led this excellent writer into an error, as it is now well known that the Phocæ cannot remain long in the water without coming to the surface to breathe. ”

“ Busk, whose absence through indisposition this evening I regret, has requested me to say on his part that he "should not himself be inclined to rest or to base the existence of Preglacial Man on a fragment of bone like that, about which it is impossible that some doubt should not exist." ”

“ I have frequently examined them, and from the female organ being nearly in the middle of the belly there is some reason to conclude as M. de Buffon has done; however, when inclined to admit the male, I have seen the female bend her two fore legs upon the root of a tree, lowering, at the same time, her head and neck, and keeping her hind legs erect, which gave the male an opportunity of acting in the same manner as other quadrupeds. They never copulate but in a state of freedom. The males are very furious in the rutting season, and it is very dangerous to go near them ”

“ It is needless to inquire how far these statements are strictly accurate; they are sufficiently so to justify Buffon's conclusions that the dry land was once beneath the sea; that the formation of the fossiliferous rocks must have occupied a vastly greater lapse of time than that traditionally ascribed to the age of the earth; that fossil remains indicate different climatal conditions to have obtained in former times, and especially that the polar regions were once warmer; that many species of animals and plants have become extinct ”

“ A great variety of the larger univalve sea-shells were used in the unaltered state, the Busycons probably taking the most important place, species of the Strombus, the Cassis, the Nautilus and Fasciolaria following in about the order named.
[pg 192] The Busycon perversum has been more extensively used than any other shell, and consequently its distribution in one form or other is very wide. It is obtained along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Massachusetts to Mexico, and within the United States it is artificially distributed over the greater part of the Atlantic slope. ”

“ Buffon had already published his great work; and even he could bethink him of no better mode of dividing his animals than into wild and tame. And in Goldsmith, who adopted, in treating of the mammals, a similar principle, we find the fishes and molluscs placed, in advance of the sauroid, ophidian, and batrachian reptiles,—the whale united in close relationship to the sharks and rays,—animals of the tortoise kind classed among animals of the lobster kind, and both among shell fish, such as the snail, the nautilus, and the oyster. ”

“ I will be the first to strike the wild boar.” The whole band rushed upon him, and while he now talks less arrogantly, now excuses himself, and now confesses his crime and implores pardon, they press upon him and wound him. In vain he cries to his aunts to protect him from his mother. Autonoë seized one arm, Ino the other, and between them he was torn to pieces, while his mother shouted, “Victory! Victory! we have done it; the glory is ours!”
So the worship of Bacchus was established in Greece.
There is an allusion to the story of Bacchus and the mariners in Milton’s “Comus,” at line 46. ”

“ This Bushbuck of the Chobé is that which, following Mr. Pocock, we have called Tragelaphus scriptus ornatus (v. s. p. 110) .
On the whole, there seems to be little doubt that there are intermediate forms between what we have here treated of as three species of Bushbuck, but the question is by no means finally settled, and waits for a better and larger series of specimens than is at our command before a satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at.
The Cape Bushbuck does well in captivity, and is frequently brought to Europe. ”

“ The Histoire Naturelle inclines to some theory of evolution, especially in the later volumes. At first Buffon teaches that species are fixed and wholly independent of one another; some years later he is ready to believe that all quadrupeds may be derived from some forty original forms, while in a third and subsequent passage he puts the question whether all vertebrates may not have had a common ancestor. He does not shrink from saying that one general plan of structure pervades the whole animal kingdom—a belief that he could never have adequately supported by facts ”

“ The nature of the limestone was unfavourable to the preservation of soft wing membranes, or even to the bones remaining in natural association. Very little is known of the head of Rhamphocephalus. One imperfect specimen shows a long temporal region which is wide, and a very narrow interspace between the orbits; with a long face, indicated by the extension of narrow nasal bones. The lower jaw has an edentulous beak or spear in front, which is compressed from side to side in the manner of the Liassic forms, but turned upward slightly, as in Dorygnathus or Campylognathus. ”