Quadruped

“ It flies through the air like a bird and, possessing mammæ like the quadrupeds, suckles its young. The double jaw is provided with three kinds of teeth. With the canines and incisors it tears its prey like carnivorous animals, and with the molars or grinders it cracks nuts like rodents, which it resembles in the narrow, oval form of its head. An imperfect quadruped when on the ground, it drags itself along, embarrassed by the mantle of its wings, which fold up around its legs like an umbrella when closed. ”

“ A lightness in the upper part of the body, combined with a small head and short forelegs, tells us that the quadruped could rear itself up on its hind legs, like a kangaroo, while in creatures of the elephant kind, which own a long nose or proboscis, we shall find that the neck is so short that it could not reach its food in the trees or on the ground without help of this sort. ”

“ In a quadruped, the horse for example, the hind feet are set down near the fore feet, and sometimes even strike them. Hence it must be inferred that the track in question was that of a biped, or of a quadruped which did not use its fore feet in progression, like a kangaroo. We naturally ask, What kind of biped could this have been? Evidently not a man, the size of the foot being too large to admit such a supposition; nor could it have been a bird, the number of toes and their direction not admitting this hypothesis. ”

“ The quadrupeds, on the contrary, existing in a medium state, equally below the airy heights, as above the deep abyss of the waters—sharing with man the possession and sovereignty of the earth—seem to hold the middle place between two extremes. They have neither the ardor nor petulance of the bird, the lower sensibility of the fish, nor the apathy of the reptile; but, living as they do on a dry and firm soil, their nature has received more consistency, and their frame more solidity. The locomotion of the quadruped has not the rapidity of flight, nor the nimbleness of swimming ”

“ Those species, which are also forty in number, form an intermediate class between quadrupeds and four-handed animals, and are in fact neither one nor the other. Therefore, to more than a fourth of our animals, the name of quadruped does not apply ”

“ Like quadrupeds, the upper part of the body is much larger than the lower, almost in the proportion of five to three, and the feet are like hands, and as it were made up of hands and feet, a foot as far as the extremity of the heel, and the remainder like a hand, for the fingers are furnished with something like a palm.
5. The ape passes more of its time as a quadruped than a biped, and like a quadruped, it has no nates, nor has it a tail like a biped, but only something in representation of a tail. The pudendum of the female resembles that of a woman; that of the male is more like a dog's. ”

“ The motive in the quadruped is the same as in the Indian. Those behind understand that it is likely to be safer for them to go where one of their kind has just passed in safety, than to take the chances of what may lie on the right or left. ”

“ Indeed all the quadrupeds, that have collar-bones, (claviculæ) use their fore-limbs in some measure as we use our hands, as the cat, squirrel, tyger, bear and lion; and as they exercise the sense of touch more universally than other animals, so are they more sagacious in watching and surprising their prey. All those birds, that use their claws for hands, as the hawk, parrot, and cuckoo, appear to be more docile and intelligent; though the gregarious tribes of birds have more acquired knowledge. ”

“ It appears not improbable that there really are no other species of quadrupeds in the country, for the natives, whose chief luxury in dress consists in the skins and hair of dogs and the skins of divers birds, and who wear for ornaments the bones and beaks of birds and teeth of dogs, would probably have made use of some part of any other animal they were acquainted with, a circumstance which, though carefully sought after, we never saw the least signs of. ”

“ In valley drift we meet commonly with the bones of quadrupeds which graze on plains bordering rivers. Carnivorous beasts, attracted to the same ground in search of their prey, sometimes leave their remains in the same deposits, but more rarely. The whole assemblage of fossil quadrupeds at present obtained from the alluvium of Picardy is obviously a mere fraction of the entire fauna which flourished contemporaneously with the primitive people by whom the flint hatchets were made. ”

“ If a quadruped, inhabiting a cold northern latitude, and covered with a warm coat of hair or wool, be transported to a southern climate, it will often, in the course of a few years, shed a considerable portion of its coat, which it gradually recovers on being again restored to its native country. Even there the same changes are, perhaps, superinduced to a certain extent by the return of winter and summer. ”

“ Many of the larger quadrupeds he has subdued, and thereby has become enabled to substitute the exertion of their muscles to relieve the toil and fatigue of his own: of the swifter, he has coerced the speed, for the anticipation of his wishes: the breed of many he has extensively multiplied, to prey on their flesh, or to become nourished by their secretions: his knowledge has been directed to the physical improvements of their race, and he has also relieved them from many infirmities and diseases, consequent on their domestication and labour. ”

“ So if this is truth, here is a third species of this quadruped. They say the third horn is only upon the male, and does not grow till he is advanced in years; the double horn which I have is fixed to a strong muscle or cartilage; when dry, exceedingly tough. ”

“ The four-handed animals fill up the great chasm between the quadruped and the human species. The two handed are in the distance between man and the cetaceous tribes. The bipeds with wings are the shade between quadrupeds and birds; and the digitated species who use their fore-feet as hands, fill up all the degrees between the quadrupeds and the four-handed kinds. ”

“ The small feet of the quadruped, the webbed feet of the ornithorhynchus, the otter, the walrus, and the triton, indicate with certainty the media to which they are adapted, and perhaps in nothing is modification of structure and form to habits more apparent than in the locomotive appendages of animals. The webbed structure between the toes of animals which live partially on the land, and of some terrestrial animals, as the water-dog, is wonderfully significant. ”

“ Lift up the front extremities of a quadruped, keep them asunder at their origins by bony props, fit them with freer motions and stronger muscles, and cover them with feathers, and they become wings in every essential particular. In the insect, however, the case is altogether different. ”

“ THE beaver enjoys the distinction of being the only warm-blooded quadruped that is in the habit of making really noticeable modifications in the appearance of the earth’s surface. Many quadrupeds, such as foxes, ant-bears, rabbits, and rats and mice burrow holes in the ground, while the mole marks the course of its subterranean tunnels by throwing up heaps of earth at intervals. ”

“ Let us now suppose that a man wishes to walk in the attitude of a quadruped. It will be necessary, in order that his upper limbs, being for the moment anterior ones, may act as members of support, to place the forearm in pronation, in order that, as is more normal, the hands may rest on the ground by their palmar surfaces. In this position the radius, being rotated on its own axis at its upper extremity and around the ulna in the rest of its extent, shall have its inferior extremity situated on the inner side of the corresponding extremity of the latter. ”

“ Those four limbs of the quadruped, which, noway under the rider's control, nor sometimes under that of the creature they more properly belong to, fly at such a rate as if the hindermost meant to overtake the foremost ”

“ After the sixth century, no extinction of any wild quadruped nor introduction of any tame one appears to have taken place, but the fauna was still modified by the wild species continuing to diminish in number and the tame ones to become more diversified by breeding and crossing, especially in the case of the dog, horse, and sheep. ”

“ It was an animal of very large size, in height far exceeding a horse, but of such a grotesque shape as to be easily recognisable by any one who had ever glanced into a picture book of quadrupeds. The long craning neck, with an almost earless head and gibbous profile; the great straggling limbs, callous at the knees, and ending in broad, wide-splitting hoofs; the slender hindquarters, and tiny tufted tail, both ludicrously disproportioned, the tumid, misshapen trunk; but, above all, the huge hunch rising above the shoulders, at once proclaimed the creature to be a dromedary. ”

“ No one doubts that the quadrupeds inhabiting snow-clad regions have been rendered white to protect them from their enemies, or to favour their stealing on their prey. In regions where snow never lies for long, a white coat would be injurious; consequently, species of this colour are extremely rare in the hotter parts of the world. It deserves notice that many quadrupeds inhabiting moderately cold regions, although they do not assume a white winter dress, become paler during this season ”

“ There is no burrow or nest to reproduce, and this course is not only possible, but usually very necessary.
There is one important fact which should never be lost sight of in the preparation of a design for a group of large quadrupeds. If the animals are purely terrestrial, as will be the case [244] in nearly all large groups, the largest and finest adult male and female should each stand on a flat and horizontal surface, in easy and conventional attitudes. ”

“ The specimen, now being exhibited in London, is the first of this race of quadrupeds which has ever been introduced from its native country into any part of Europe, and it is exciting a great deal of interest among naturalists. Very little is known of the genus to which the animal belongs, all its species being found only in the barbarous countries, very little known, on the eastern coast of Africa. They all climb upon trees, like the squirrel. Their habits are strictly nocturnal. They never venture from their retreats while the faintest gleam of daylight is visible ”

“ Yet, with all these advantages, the mammalian quadruped has not attained the highest position in animal development. It will be very easy to point out several defects in its organization, which detract from its powers as a living body. In the first place it only imperfectly overcomes gravity. Shortened as the body is, a considerable part of its weight is not supported by the limbs, and needs muscular support. This increases weight and uses up force. The head also is not directly supported by the limbs and needs powerful muscular support in the neck. ”

“ The eggs of these quadrupeds are formed in the same way as those of birds, for they are hard-shelled and two-coloured, and they are formed near the hypozoma as are those of birds, and in all other respects resemble them both internally and externally, so that the inquiry into their causes is the same for all. But whereas the eggs of quadrupeds are hatched out by the mere heat of the weather owing to their strength, those of birds are more exposed to destruction and need the mother-bird. ”

“ But the fossil remains of quadrupeds are very rarely complete; some of the parts are wanting; the bones are either scattered at a distance from each other, or else lying confused together, and generally broken. Yet these misplaced fragments are the only means left for naturalists to determine the species of the animal to which they had belonged; and in frequent cases a single bone has been sufficient for that purpose. ”

“ In the adaptation of the frame of a mammiferous quadruped for especial and peculiar actions and modes of life, such as for climbing and living in trees, or for burrowing and seeking concealment in the earth, not only the immediate instruments, as the feet, are modified, but the whole of the osseous and muscular fabric is more or less impressed with corresponding adaptations, whilst at the same time these special adjustments are invariably subordinated to the type of organization which characterizes the group. ”

“ It is true that the great continents, as Asia, Africa, the two Americas, and New Holland, have large quadrupeds, and, generally speaking, contain species common to each; insomuch, that upon discovering countries which are isolated from the rest of the world, the animals they contain of the class of quadruped were found entirely different from those which existed in other countries. ”

“ For man bends his legs convexly, a bird has his bent concavely; again, man bends his arms and legs in opposite directions, for he has his arms bent convexly, but his legs concavely. And a viviparous quadruped bends his limbs in opposite directions to a man's, and in opposite directions to one another; for he has his forelegs bent convexly, his hind legs concavely. Again, quadrupeds which are not viviparous but oviparous have a peculiar curvature of the limbs laterally away from the body. Again, why do quadrupeds move their legs criss-cross? ”

“ For in quadrupeds there is a greater abundance of hair on the back than on the under side of the body; whereas in man the contrary is the case, and the hair is more abundant on the front surface than on the back. The reason for this is that hair is intended to serve as a protection to its possessor. Now, in quadrupeds, owing to their inclined attitude, the under or anterior surface does not require so much protection as the back, and is therefore left comparatively bald, in spite of its being the nobler of the two sides. ”