Troglodytes

“ The noble Brutus went wise Trivia to inquire,
To show them where the stock of ancient Troy to place.
M. Drayton, Polyolbion, i. (1612) . Trog ́lodytes (3 or 4 syl.) . According to Pliny (Nat. Hist., v. 8) , the Troglodytes lived in caves under ground, and fed on serpents. In modern parlance, we call those who live so secluded as not to be informed of the current events of the day, troglodytes. Longfellow calls ants by the same name. ”

“ A. troglodytes [2] (cave-dweller) is a very common, but interesting object. The members of this species are especial favourites with the writer, from their great suitableness for the aquarium. They vary considerably in their appearance from each other. Some are red, violet, purple, or fawn colour; others exhibit a mixture of these tints, while not a few are almost entirely white. There are certain specimens which disclose tentacula, that in colour and character look, at a little distance, like a mass of eider-down spread out in a circular form. ”

“ More often we have unconscionable yarns about men without noses, or with only one eye, tailed men, solid-hoofed men, Amazons, and parthenogenesis. The Troglodytes, or Cave-dwellers, on the Nubian coast of the Red Sea seem to have been in the middle status of barbarism (Diodorus, iii. 32; Agatharchides, 61-63) , and the Ichthyophagi, or Fish-eaters, whom Nearchus found on the shores of Gedrosia (Arrian, Indica, cap. 29) , were probably in a lower stage, perhaps true savages. It is exceedingly curious that Mela puts a race of pygmies at the headwaters of the Nile (see map above, p. 304) . ”

“ This mixture of bones and charcoal occurs so generally, so uniformly, that it is not easy to suppose that the Troglodytes lighted fires merely for the purpose of keeping themselves warm. They must have lighted fires daily at all seasons of the year, and hence it is likely that they cooked their food. ”

“ For a long time it was supposed that the mammoth became extinct about the middle of that period; and when it was announced that several teeth of that animal and sundry pieces of wrought ivory had been discovered in the most recent Troglodytic stations of the Vézère, many persons were of opinion that these remains must have come down from an earlier period, and been gathered by our Troglodytes, just as the inhabitants of Siberia do at present. ”

“ To their uncleanly habits we are indebted for what we know about their food. Their chief staple was reindeer meat; but they also eat the flesh of the horse, the aurochs, several species of the ox, the chamois, the wild-goat, and even some carnivora. They used also fish, and, by means of the bow and arrow, they could take winged game. The caves contain the remains of birds of many different species. But, among all these bones, we find no human remains; and, hence, we know that our good Troglodytes were not cannibals. ”

“ In many of its actions it closely resembles the Wren (Troglodytes Europæus) , particularly in its manner of hopping about on the ground, and from stone to stone, with its tail erect in search of insects, upon which it solely subsists; it also assimilates to the Wren in the form, construction and situation of its nest; but in the number and colour of its eggs there is much difference. It rarely flies more than a few yards at a time, but secretes itself in the midst of the little thicket in which it has taken up its abode. There is little difficulty in finding the nest ”

“ Judging from the style of weapons these Troglodytes employed, we should say that they were quiet folk, not given to war.
It has been supposed that they wore no clothing, as all the human figures portrayed by their artists are nude (Fig. 5) . This, however, proves just nothing, because it proves too much. By parity of reasoning, the Greeks would have gone naked also. But we find in the caves all the necessary outfit of the (Troglodytic) tailor. There are needles of bone and of reindeer-horn, some of them being mere awls, but ”

“ On returning from the chase or from fishing, the Troglodytes got ready the feast in their cave. The carcasses of reindeer and the smaller game were brought in whole, but large-sized animals, the horse or the ox, being too heavy to carry away whole, were cut up on the spot, the head and legs being carried off, and the rest of the skeleton left behind. Hence, among the leavings found in the caves, we scarcely ever meet with any bones from the trunk of large mammals, while every part of the skeleton of reindeer and smaller animals is to be found. ”

“ When the young issue from the nest, it is interesting to see them follow the parents amongst the currant bushes in the gardens, like so many mice, hopping from twig to twig, throwing their tail upwards, and putting their bodies into a hundred different positions, all studied from the parents, whilst the latter are heard scolding, even without cause, but as if to prevent the approach of enemies, so anxious are they for the safety of their progeny. They leave Pennsylvania about the 1st of October.
Troglodytes ædon, Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. ”

“ That there are a great number of points of similarity between ourselves and the lower animals, then, appears to be clearly admitted on all hands. It is, further, universally allowed that the Vertebrata resemble man more nearly than do any invertebrates; that among vertebrates the Mammalia, and of these the Quadrumana, approach him most closely. Lastly, I am aware of no dissentient voice to the proposition, that in the whole, the genera Troglodytes, Pithecus, and Hylobates, make the closest approximation to the human structure. ”

“ In a skulking manner, with its little tail erect, it hops about the most entangled parts of the forests of Tierra del Fuego; but when near the outskirts, it every now and then pops out, and then quickly back again. It utters many loud and strange cries: to obtain a good view of it is not always easy, and still less so to make it fly. A specimen I procured at Chiloe had its upper mandible stronger and more arched, but differed in no other respect.
1. Troglodytes Magellanicus. Gould.
T. Magellanicus, Gould, in Proc. of Zool. Soc. Part iv. 1836, p. 88. This bird has a considerable range. ”

“ The constitution of the family is by no means well determined. The South American genera are taken from Messrs. Sclater and Salvin's Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalium.
Tesia (2 sp.) , Eastern Himalayas; Pnoepyga (6 sp.) , Himalayas to East Thibet, Java; (716 and 723) Troglodytes (15 sp.) , Neotropical, Nearctic, and Palæarctic regions to the Higher Himalayas; (697) Rimator (1 sp.) , Darjeeling; Thryothorus (13 sp.) , South Brazil to Mexico, Martinique, and Nearctic region; Thryophilus (13 sp.) , Brazil to Mexico, and North-west America ”

“ The normal species of Troglodyte are clothed in tints of buff, grey, black, white, and red; and from the time they come out like buds from the parent stem, little miniature creations from a pin’s head and upwards, who seat themselves on the soft, crumbling sandstone, or in the sand expand their saucy tentacles, and wait with exemplary patience for the morsel that will get a blessing with the rest, they are the architects of their own fortunes ”

“ Methinks that the ancients were quite right, and that our modern masters in ornithology are quite wrong. If we only for a moment reflect that the nest of the wren is spherical, and is of itself, as it were, a little cave, we can easily imagine that the ancients, on seeing the bird going in and out of this artificial cave, considered the word troglodytas an appropriate appellation. ”

“ They are objects of delicate manipulation, the value of which is proved by the occurrence of examples accidentally broken, and drilled with a new eye. The caves of the Dordogne pertained, even in the remote era of the mammoth or reindeer periods, to a race of inland hunters and fishermen to whom such a harpoon would have been cumbrous, if not wholly unsuited to their requirements. But the Kent’s Hole Troglodyte had probably more formidable prey to encounter, and so adapted the implements of the chase to his special requirements. ”

“ Judging from the structure of the eye and the color of the skin, Troglichthys has been longest established in caves. Amblyopsis came next, and Typhlichthys is a later addition to the blind cave fauna.
"Those," said Dr. J. N. Langley, in his sectional address on Physiology at the British Association, "who have occasion to enter into the depths of what is oddly, if generously, called the literature of a scientific subject, alone know the difficulty of emerging with an unsoured disposition. ”

“ The Trogons form a well-marked family of insectivorous forest-haunting birds, whose dense yet puffy plumage exhibits the most exquisite tints of pink, crimson, orange, brown, or metallic green, often relieved by delicate bands of pure white. In one Guatemalan species the tail coverts are enormously lengthened into waving plumes of rich metallic green, as graceful and marvellous as those of the Paradise-birds. Trogons are tolerably abundant in the Neotropical and Oriental regions, and are represented in Africa by a single species of a peculiar genus. ”

“ The extreme development of the type in the New World just noticed also furnishes another hint. While in some of the American Trogons (Pharomacriis, for instance) the plumage of the females is not very much less beautiful than that of the inales, there are others in which the hen birds retain what may be fairly deemed a more ancient livery, while the cocks flaunt in brilliant attire. Now the plumage of both sexes in all but one [4] of the Asiatic Trogons, Harpactes, resembles rather that of the young and of those females of the American species which are modestly clothed. ”

“ Eine Art davon wird die fette der Ebene genannt, von der durch Auspressen die Stakte gewonnen wird, eine andere die Gabirea, sehr fette, welche auf fruchtbarem fettem Boden wächst, und auch viel Stakte liefert. Alle übertrifft die troglodytische, so genannt von dem Lande, wo sie wächst; sie ist grünlichgelb, beißend und durchsichtig. Eine gewisse feine Art wird auch gesammelt, welche gleich auf die troglodytische folgt, etwas weich wie das Bdellium, von üblem Geruch ist und in sonnigen Gegenden wächst. ”

“ The Family ranges through the tropical portions of the Indian, Ethiopian, and Neotropical Regions, Harpactes and Hapalarpactes being found in the first, Hapaloderma in the second, and the other five genera in the third. Trogon ambiguus reaches northwards to Arizona and Texas. The number of species is nearly fifty, of which the largest (Pharomacrus mocinno) measures some fourteen inches, the smallest (Harpactes duvauceli) about nine.
Trogons are usually seen singly or in pairs, though sometimes in small flocks; they are rarely shy, and often so unsuspicious that they may be killed with a stick. ”

“ Two other families, the Trogonidæ and the Meropidæ, are not represented by species inhabiting the United States or the more northern countries of this continent. Of the Trogonidæ, however, several species are found in Mexico, one of which (Trogon mexicanus) was observed by Lieut. Couch, in the northern part of that country, and will very probably yet be found within the present limits of this confederacy. All the American Trogons are birds of remarkable beauty, and one of them (Calurus resplendens) can scarcely be surpassed in any country. ”

“ Different genera and species of the trilobite are now found in almost every part of the globe, and are frequently exceedingly abundant in the rocks which contain them. That they must have swarmed in particular places, is abundantly evident from a number of localities in our own country,—millions, for example, must have lived and died not far from Trenton falls, in the State of New York. ”

“ Fig. 136.—Trombidium locustarum: a, female with her batch of eggs; b, newly hatched larva—natural size indicated by the dot within the circle; c, egg; d e, vacated egg-shells.
The genus Trombidium includes a number of the Red Mites which feed on insects in all their stages. The Locust Mite, Trombidium locustarum Riley, is one of the most interesting as well as one of the most important of our locust enemies, and will serve to illustrate the habits of the group. It differs so much in infancy and maturity that it has been referred to different genera and is known under different names. ”

“ The ancestor of the trilobite is believed to have been a soft-bodied, free-swimming, flat, blind or nearly blind animal of few segments, because:
(a) the form of both adult and embryo is of a type more adapted for floating than crawling;
(b) the large pygidium is shown by ontogeny to be primitive, and the elongate worm-like form secondary;
(c) the history of the trilobites shows a considerable increase in the average number of segments in successive periods from the Cambrian to the Permian ”

“ The species are much more numerous then is imagined, but they are, perhaps, less understood than those of any one group of Ornithology. Males of different species are classed as the same, while their females are considered as distinct. The number enumerated in the last edition of the Synopsis of Birds as inhabiting all South America, is six; but we possess eight species from Brazil alone; besides several others, which it is impossible to identify from books.
The Mexican Trogon was first described by us, from a bird, which we felt assured was a female ”

“ There there is neither South nor East nor West, but only North and Beyond; there is only North of it where lie the Worlds, and Beyond it where lies the Silence, and the Rim is a mass of rocks that were never used by the gods when They made the Worlds, and on it sat Trogool. Trogool is the Thing that is neither god nor beast, who neither howls nor breathes, only It turns over the leaves of a great book, black and white, black and white for ever until the End. ”