Snout

“ The point of the snout is like that of a hog. This fish makes war on all others in the lakes and rivers and possesses, as those people assure me, a wonderful instinct; which is, that when it wants to catch any birds, it goes among the rushes or reeds, bordering the lake in many places, keeping the beak out of the water without budging, so that when the birds perch on his beak, imagining it a limb of a tree, it is so subtle that closing the jaws which it keeps half open, it draws the birds under water by the feet. ”

“ Soon there emerges from the churning waters a long and incredibly ugly snout, followed by a low, reptilian head, with venomous, heavy-lidded, scarlet eyes, a body as broad as a row-boat and armored with horny scales, and finally a tremendous tail, twice as long as an elephant's trunk and twice as powerful, that spells death for any human being that comes within its reach. ”

“ A broad band extends along the whole dorsal surface from the snout to the tip of the tail. In the alcoholic specimen this band is dark clay-color, dotted with black on the upper surface of the head. It is broadest on the back of the head and narrowest above the anus. The upper surfaces of the limbs and the side of the snout are clay-color dotted with black. A black line runs from the eye to the nostril. The hands and feet are black dotted with clay-color. ”

“ Sometimes they lie like stones, nor, unless you stir them up with a long pole, will they stir in the gleam, more than if they were shadows breathed from trees when all winds are dead. But at other times, they are on feed; and then no sooner does the fly drop on the water in its blue and yellow gaudiness (and oh! but the brown mallard wing is bloody—bloody!) than some snout sucks it in—some snout of some swine-necked shoulder-bender ”

“ This formidable and terrific creature, when full-grown, measures about 17 feet long from the extremity of the snout to the insertion of the tail, above 16 feet in circumference round the body, and stands above 7 feet high. It runs with astonishing swiftness for its great bulk, at the bottom of lakes and rivers, but not with as much ease on land. When excited, it puts forth its full strength, which is prodigious. ”

“ But it has been held that the length of the hind feet alone is distinctive, and that "any Shrew in which these reach or exceed 12 millimetres may be set down as of the larger species."
The colour of the fur is the brown and white of the common species with a fairly sharp line of demarcation between them. Though the animal as a whole is more delicately built, the snout is relatively longer and thicker; the tail also thicker and more hairy; the forearm and hand are shorter. The [Pg 27] sensitive snout appears to be more useful than its eyes in hunting. ”

“ From its long, bill-like snout it thrusts out its longer tongue, and the frantic ants, disturbed in their quarters, on rushing out stick to it, and are rapidly swept into the mouth. When sleeping, it is coiled up under its immense bushy tail and looks more like a little heap of dried grass than an animal. ”

“ The flexible snout is adapted for turning up the earth after the immense hands with their large, strong nails have loosened it. They are wide-open hands that cannot be closed and the palms always face outwards. The hairs constituting the velvety fur are all set vertically, so that they will lie forwards or backwards or to either side; and the colour appears to change according to our point of view—two persons viewing the same Mole can describe it correctly as black and as grey. It is really a dark grey. ”

“ All these expressive snouts seem to cry shame upon prejudices, and invoke enjoyment; there is something reckless and derisive about them; the whole countenance is directed towards the snout, and the end of the entire head is in the mouth. ”

“ The snout is black and hard, the back part is quite solid, and somewhat of a globular form, whereas the front f, is sharp and hollow; on the back part three membranaceous divisions may be observed, by means of which, and the muscles contained in the snout, the insect can at pleasure expand or contract it. ”

“ The proportions of the various parts of the body to one another vary exceedingly in one and the same species. Beside the usual changes from the young to the sexually mature form observed in all fishes, the snout undergoes an extraordinary amount of alteration of shape. In the mature male the intermaxillaries and the mandible are produced in various degrees, and the latter is frequently more or less bent upwards. Hence the males have the snout much more pointed and produced, and the entire head longer, than the females ”

“ Master Showman, how long do you suppose he measures? Vhy! fifteen feet from the snout to the tail, and only twelve feet from the tail to the snout. He lives to the advanced age of one hundred years, grows a inch and a ’arf every hannual year, and never comes to his full growth. ”

“ This animal is rather less than the elephant, but stronger. His skin is prodigiously thick, and so hard that scarcely any weapon can pierce it. His snout is like that of a hog, on which grows a solid horn, ten or twelve inches long, which is much valued, because esteemed an excellent medicine in convulsions. ”

“ In certain of the mailed genera the secondary sexual differences may be very pronounced, and have given rise to many nominal species. The shape of the snout may differ according to the sex, and its margin may be beset with tentacles in the male, whilst it frequently happens that the head of the latter is margined with spines or bristles which are either absent or considerably shorter in the female. ”

“ The head is drawn out into a very long, slender, beak-like snout, at the tip of which the nostrils are placed, and the tongue is long and worm-like and very sticky, just as it is in the true ant-eaters. The feet are furnished with enormous claws, which are used in tearing open the nests of the insects upon which the animal feeds, and those of the hind feet, strange to say, are turned backward in walking, so that they point toward the tail instead of the head. ”

“ The colour of full-grown females does not differ essentially from that of the males, except that the former have much less white on the middle of the upper neck. The snout is sometimes brown, sometimes almost entirely white, the dark eye-pits becoming then particularly conspicuous. The dark ridge along the tail is also scarcely traceable. ”

“ The total length of this animal as he sits, from the point of his nose to his anus, is 17 inches and a quarter. The length of his snout, from the extremity of the nose to the occiput, is 3 inches and 3/8ths. His upper jaw is longer than his under; his nose stretches half an inch beyond his chin. The aperture of the mouth, when he keeps it close in profile, is a little more than an inch. The circumference of his snout around both his jaws is 3 inches and 3/8ths; and round his head, just above his ears, 8 inches and 5/8ths ”

“ Near the end of this snout are the nostrils. This snout is mostly covered with thin skin. The mouth orifice is small, but large enough for all the creature’s needs; its manner of eating is to thrust out a long, flexible, delicate tongue covered with a glue-like substance. To this insects adhere, and the tongue being drawn in, the insects are swallowed. The echidna has no teeth; as its food is ants and small flies it needs none. The tongue and palate are covered with fine spines which no doubt crush the insect food. ”

“ The flattened part of the face is set with strong bristles. The nostrils are on the upper part of the snout, through which it blows like a whale. The fore paws, which are a kind of webbed hand, are two-sevenths of the full length of the animal from the snout. They are from two to two and a half feet in length, and being expansive maybe stretched to the breadth of fifteen to eighteen inches. The hind feet, which form a sort of tail fin, extend straight backward. They are not united, but detached from each other. ”

“ Although the feet are not well formed for digging he can burrow expeditiously in light vegetable soil with the forefeet, and can bury himself in twelve seconds; but, as a rule, he is more inclined to utilise the common underground runs of Mice where these are available. The long, attenuated and sensitive snout, like those of the Pig and Hedgehog, are well adapted for turning over dead leaves and the surface soil in its search for insects, worms, and snails; and its short, soft, velvety fur fits it for passage through the soil without getting dirty. ”

“ Thus whilst the snout which is elongated in most quadrupeds, performs the double function of first feeling all bodies, turning them in various directions in order to ascertain their tangible qualities, and then of seizing them for nourishment, the mouth of man serves only for this last use; it is the hands which are destined for the first. ”

“ DESCRIPTION.—Body fusiform, as in the last, but with smaller pectoral and dorsal but larger caudal fin; the back is straighter and not so much rounded on the shoulders, and the colour is bluish-cinerous or slaty, freckled with small irregular spots of brown or plumbeous, and longitudinal streaks of the same flecked with white; the under parts a shade lighter than rest of the body. The snout is six inches in length. ”

“ The nostrils, as in the Dog, are separated by a slight furrow, and they open quite at the end of the snout, which projects slightly beyond the lip. The head, neck, shoulders, and all the fore parts of the body as far as the loins are covered with long shaggy hair; that on the hips, thighs, and legs is short, and contrasted with the former has the appearance of having been clipped, so that the whole animal bears some resemblance to a French Poodle. ”

“ Fortunately, the black bear, unlike the grizzly, very seldom uses his claws and teeth in fighting, contenting himself with smothering his victim. Boone disentangled his left arm, and with his knife dealt a furious blow upon the snout of the animal, which, smarting with pain, released his hold. The snout is the only vulnerable part in an old black bear. Even at forty yards, the ball of a rifle will flatten against his skull, and if in any other part of the body, it will scarcely produce any serious effect. ”

“ Its long, lithe body attains a length of over half a yard; its tail is about a foot in length. The legs are short, though not nearly so short as in the Weasels, and its paws have five digits, armed with sharp claws. The snout is sharp and beset at the sides with long vibrissæ. The skin is very beautiful, dark-brown for the most part, lighter on the cheeks and snout, and on the throat and under side of the neck a light yellow. ”

“ The trunk or snout is so long and of such form that it serves him as a hand, for he both eats and drinks by bringing his food and drink to his mouth by its means, and by it he helps up his master or keeper, and also overturns trees by its strength. Besides his two great tusks, he has four teeth on each side of his mouth, by which he eats or grinds his food, each of these teeth being almost a span long, as they lie along the jaw, by two inches high and about as much in breadth. The tusks of the male are larger than those of the female. ”

“ In Gila, the snout does not project beyond the mouth, which is oblique, lacks a frenum, and is larger than in Rhinichthys. The snout of the hybrid projects less than in R. cataractae and is bridged to the upper lip by a frenum 1.7 mm. wide. The mouth of the hybrid is intermediate in size, obliquity, and thickness of the lips. ”

“ The tail is long. The limbs, neck, and head are so stout that they cannot be completely withdrawn into the shell. Snout with a powerful hooked beak. American; only two genera, each with one species.
The temporal region is roofed very incompletely and only anteriorly by the expanded parietals and postfrontals, which form a long suture. The plastron consists of nine bony plates, a small entoplastron being present; there are lacunae in the middle line, the plates meeting imperfectly, and the horny abdominal shields are likewise separated by soft skin. ”

“ The thickness at the gill cover is greater than that of the body, which lessens very gradually to the end of the tail. The snout is transversely obtuse, but is rather acute in profile. A cross section of the body at the ventrals is ovate, approaching to an oval, the obtuse end being upwards. In profile the curve of the belly is rather greater than that of the back, and the face slopes downwards to the mouth, nearly in a straight line.
The head forms rather less than a quarter of the whole length. The eye is large, and approaches near the profile without trenching on it. ”

“ The lance fish with long, backward-reaching spines suggestive of lances just behind the eyes.
The forceps fish, one of the most aberrant of all with its greatly extended, forceps-like jaws. There is apparently but a single genus and species in existence.
The family of snout fish with snouts almost as long as the rest of the body. At the end of the snout is a mouth. ”

“ There are three molars with sharp-pointed cusps in each jaw, with a small tuberculous tooth in the upper. The feet are five-toed, separate, not webbed like the moles; the snout is long and pointed and very mobile.
This family has been subdivided in various genera by naturalists, each one having his followers; and it is puzzling to know which to adopt. ”

“ This animal frequently changes its appearance, and assumes a very different form; for, the snout being drawn inwards, the fore-part becomes clubbed, and immediately dividing, exhibits to our view two circular instruments set with minute hairs, that move very briskly, sometimes in a rotatory, at other times in a kind of trembling or vibratory manner. ”