The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862

The second class in this type is that of Gasteropoda, so named from the fleshy muscular expansion on which they move, and which is therefore called a foot: a very inappropriate name; since it has no relation or resemblance to a foot, though it is used as a locomotive organ. This class includes all the Snails, Slugs, Cockles, Conchs, Periwinkles, Whelks, Limpets, and the like. Some of them have no solid covering; but the greater part are protected by a single shell, and on this account they are called Univalves, in contradistinction to the Acephala or Bivalves. These shells, though always single, differ from each other by an endless variety of form and color,—from the flat simple shell of the Limpet to the elaborate spiral and brilliant hues of the Cones and Cowries. Different as is their external covering, however, if we examine the internal structure of a Gasteropod, we find the same general arrangement of parts that prevails in the Acephala, showing that both belong to the same great division of the Animal Kingdom. The mantle envelops the animal, and lines its single shell as it lined the double shell of the Oyster; the gills are placed on either side of it; the stomach, with the winding alimentary canal, is in the centre of the body; the heart and liver are placed in the same relation to it as in the Acephala; and though the so-called foot would seem to be a new feature, it is but a muscular expansion of the ventral side of the body. There is an evident superiority in this class over the preceding one, in the greater prominence of the anterior extremity, where there are two or more feelers, with which eyes more or less developed are connected; and though there is nothing that can be properly called a head, yet there can be no hesitation as to the distinction between the front and hind ends of the body.

The third and highest class of Mollusks has been called Cephalopoda, in reference again to a special feature of their structure. They have long arms or feelers around the head, serving as organs of locomotion, by which they propel themselves through the water with a velocity that is quite extraordinary, when compared with the sluggishness of the other Mollusks. In these animals the head is distinctly marked,—being separated, by a contraction or depression behind it, from the rest of the body. The feelers, so prominent on the anterior extremity of the Gasteropoda, are suppressed in Cephalopoda, and the eyes are consequently brought immediately on the side of the head, and are very large in proportion to the size of the animal. A skin corresponding to the mantle envelops the body, and the gills are on either side of it;—the stomach with its winding canal, the liver, and heart occupy the centre of the body, as in the two other classes. This class includes all the Cuttle-Fishes, Squids, and Nautili, and has a vast number of fossil representatives. Many of these animals are destitute of any shell; and where they have a shell, it is not coiled from right to left or from left to right as in the spiral of the Gasteropoda, but from behind forwards as in the Nautilus. These shells are usually divided into a number of chambers,—the animal, as it grows, building a wall behind it at regular intervals, and always occupying the external chamber, retaining, however, a connection with his past home by a siphon that runs through the whole succession of chambers. The readers of the "Atlantic Monthly" cannot fail to remember the exquisite poem suggested to the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by this singular feature in the structure of the so-called Chambered Shells.

Cuvier divided the Mollusks also into a larger number of classes than are now admitted. He placed the Barnacles with them on account of their shells; and it is only since an investigation of the germs born from these animals has shown them to be Articulates that their true position is understood. They give birth to little Shrimps that afterwards become attached to the rocks and assume the shelly covering that has misled naturalists about them. Brachiopods formed another of his classes; but these differ from the other Bivalves only in having a net-work of blood-vessels in the place of the free gills, and this is merely a complication of structure, not a difference in the general mode of execution, for their position and relation to the rest of the organization are exactly the same in both. Pteropods constituted another class in his division of the type of Mollusks; but these animals, again, form only an order in the class of Gasteropoda, as Brachiopods form an order in the class of Acephala.

In the third division of the Animal Kingdom, the Articulates, we have again three classes: Worms, Crustacea, and Insects. The lowest of these three classes, the Worms, presents the typical structure of that branch in the most uniform manner, with little individualization of parts. The body is a long cylinder divided through its whole length by movable joints, while the head is indicated only by a difference in the front-joint. There is here no concentration of vitality in special parts of the structure, as in the higher animals, but the nervous force is scattered through the whole body,—every ring having, on its lower side, either two nervous swellings, one on the right, the other on the left side, connected by nervous threads with those that precede and those that follow them, or these swellings being united in the median line. It is this equal distribution of nervous force through the whole system that gives to these animals such an extraordinary power of repairing any injured part, so that, if cut in two, the front part may even reconstruct a tail for itself, while the hind part produces a new head, and both continue to live as distinct animals. This facility of self-repair, after a separation of the parts, which is even a normal mode of multiplication in some of them, does not indicate, as may at first appear, a greater intensity of vital energy, but, on the contrary, arises from an absence of any one nervous centre such as exists in all the higher animals, and is the key to their whole organization. A serious injury to the brain of a Vertebrate destroys vitality at once, for it holds the very essence of its life; whereas in many of the lower animals any part of the body may be destroyed without injury to the rest. The digestive cavity in the Worms runs the whole length of the body; and the respiratory organs, wherever they are specialized, appear as little vesicles or gill-like appendages either along the back or below the sides, connected with the locomotive appendages.

This class includes animals of various degrees of complication of structure, from those with highly developed organizations to the lowest Worms that float like long threads in the water and hardly seem to be animals. Yet even these creatures, so low in the scale of life, are not devoid of some instincts, however dim, of feeling and affection. I remember a case in point that excited my own wonder at the time, and may not be uninteresting to my readers. A gentleman from Detroit had had the kindness to send me one of those long thread-like Worms (Gordius) found often in brooks and called Horse-Hairs by the common people. When I first received it, it was coiled up in a close roll at the bottom of the bottle, filled with fresh water, that contained it, and looked more like a little tangle of black sewing-silk than anything else. Wishing to unwind it, that I might examine its entire length, I placed it in a large china basin filled with water, and proceeded very gently to disentangle its coils, when I perceived that the animal had twisted itself around a bundle of its eggs, holding them fast in a close embrace. In the process of unwinding, the eggs dropped away and floated to a little distance. Having finally stretched it out to its full length, perhaps half a yard, I sat watching to see if this singular being that looked like a long black thread in the water would give any signs of life. Almost immediately it moved towards the bundle of eggs, and, having reached it, began to sew itself through and through the little white mass, passing one end of its body through it, and then returning to make another stitch, as it were, till the eggs were at last completely entangled again in an intricate net-work of coils. It seemed to me almost impossible that this care of copying could be the result of any instinct of affection in a creature of so low an organization, and I again separated it from the eggs, and placed them at a greater distance, when the same action was repeated. On trying the experiment a third time, the bundle of eggs had become loosened, and a few of them dropped off singly into the water. The efforts which the animal then made to recover the missing ones, winding itself round and round them, but failing to bring them into the fold with the rest, because they were too small, and evaded all efforts to secure them, when once parted from the first little compact mass, convinced me that there was a definite purpose in its attempts, and that even a being so low in the scale of animal existence has some dim consciousness of a relation to its offspring. I afterwards unwound also the mass of eggs, which, when coiled up as I first saw it, made a roll of white substance about the size of a coffee-bean, and found that it consisted of a string of eggs, measuring more than twelve feet in length, the eggs being held together by some gelatinous substance that cemented them and prevented them from falling apart. Cutting this string across, and placing a small section under the microscope, I counted on one surface of such a cut from seventy to seventy-five eggs; and estimating the entire number of eggs according to the number contained on such a surface, I found that there were not less than eight millions of eggs in the whole string. The fertility of these lower animals is truly amazing, and is no doubt a provision of Nature against the many chances of destruction to which these germs, so delicate and often microscopically small, must be exposed. The higher we rise in the Animal Kingdom, the more limited do we find the number of progeny, and the care bestowed upon them by the parents is in proportion to this diminution.

The next class in the type of Articulates is that of Crustacea, including Lobsters, Crabs, and Shrimps. It may seem at first that nothing can be more unlike a Worm than a Lobster; but a comparison of the class-characters shows that the same general plan controls the organization in both. The body of the Lobster is divided into a succession of joints or rings, like that of the Worm; and the fact that the front rings in the Lobster are soldered together, so as to make a stiff front region of the body, inclosing the head and chest, while only the hind rings remain movable, thus forming a flexible tail, does not alter in the least the general structure, which consists in both of a body built of articulated rings. The nervous swellings, which were evenly distributed through the whole body in the Worm, are more concentrated here, in accordance with the prevalent combination of the rings in two distinct regions of the body, the larger ones corresponding to the more important organs; but their relation to the rest of the organization, and their connection by nervous threads with each other, remain the same. The respiratory organs, which in most of the Worms were mere vesicles on the lower part of the sides of the body, are here more highly organized gills; but their general character and relation to other parts of the structure are unchanged, and in this respect the connection of the gills of Crustacea with their legs is quite significant. The alimentary canal consists of a single digestive cavity passing through the whole body, as in Worms, the anterior part of which is surrounded by a large liver. What is true of the Lobsters is true also, so far as class-characters are concerned, of all the Crustacea.

Highest in this type are the Insects, and among these I include Spiders and Centipedes as well as Winged Insects. It is true that the Centipedes have a long uniform body like Worms, and the Spiders have the body divided into two regions like the Crustacea, while the body in true Insects has three distinct regions, head, chest, and hind body; but notwithstanding this difference, both the former share in the peculiar class-character that places them with the Winged Insects in a separate group, distinct from all the other Articulates. We have seen that in the Worms the respiratory organs are mere vesicles, while in the Crustacea they are more highly organized gills; but in Centipedes, Spiders, and Winged Insects, the breathing-apparatus is aerial, consisting of air-holes on the sides of the body, connected with a system of tubes and vessels extending into the body and admitting air to all parts of it. In the Winged Insects this system is very elaborate, filling the body with air to such a degree as to render it exceedingly light and adapted to easy and rapid flight. The general arrangement of parts is the same in this class as in the two others, the typical character being alike in all.

We come now to the highest branch of the Animal Kingdom, that to which we ourselves belong,—the Vertebrates. This type is usually divided into four classes, Fishes, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammalia; and though many naturalists believe that it includes more, and I am myself of that opinion, I shall allude here only to the four generally admitted classes, as they are sufficient for my present purpose, and will serve to show the characters upon which classes are based. In a former paper I have explained in general terms the plan of structure of this type,—a backbone, with a bony arch above and a bony arch below, forming two cavities that contain all the systems of organs, the whole being surrounded by the flesh and skin. Now whether a body so constructed lie prone in the water, like a Fish,—or be lifted on imperfect legs, like a Reptile,—or be balanced on two legs, while the front limbs become wings, as in Birds,—or be raised upon four strong limbs terminating in paws or feet, as in Quadrupeds,—or stand upright with head erect, while the limbs consist of a pair of arms and a pair of legs, as in Man,—does not in the least affect that structural conception under which they are all included. Every Vertebrate has a backbone; every Vertebrate has a bony arch above that backbone and a bony arch below it, forming two cavities,—no matter whether these arches be of hard bone, or of cartilage, or even of a softer substance; every Vertebrate has the brain, the spinal marrow or spinal cord, and the organs of the senses in the upper cavity, and the organs of digestion, respiration, circulation, and reproduction in the lower one; every Vertebrate has four locomotive appendages built of the same bones and bearing the same relation to the rest of the organization, whether they be called pectoral and ventral fins, or legs, or wings and legs, or arms and legs. Notwithstanding the rudimentary condition of these limbs in some Vertebrates and their difference of external appearance in the different groups, they are all built of the same structural elements. These are the typical characters of the whole branch, and exist in all its representatives.

What now are the different modes of expressing this structural plan that lead us to associate certain Vertebrates together in distinct classes? Beginning with the lowest class,—the Fishes are cold-blooded, they breathe through gills, and they are egg-laying; in other words, though they have the same general structure as the other Vertebrates, they have a special mode of circulation, respiration, and reproduction. The Reptiles are also cold-blooded, though their system of circulation is somewhat more complicated than that of the Fishes; they breathe through lungs, though part of them retain their gills through life; and they lay eggs, but larger and fewer ones than the Fishes, diminishing in number in proportion to their own higher or lower position in their class. They also bestow greater care upon their offspring than most of the Fishes. The Birds are warm-blooded and air-breathing, having a double circulation; they are egg-laying like the two other classes, but their eggs are comparatively few in number, and the young are hatched by the mother and fed by the parent birds till they can provide for themselves.

The Mammalia are also warm-blooded and breathe through lungs; but they differ from all other Vertebrates in their mode of reproduction, bringing forth living young which they nurse with milk. Even in the lowest members of this highest group of the Vertebrates, at the head of which stands Man himself, looking heavenward it is true, but nevertheless rooted deeply in the Animal Kingdom, we have the dawning of those family relations, those intimate ties between parents and children, on which the whole social organization of the human race is based. Man is the crowning work of God on earth; but though so nobly endowed, we must not forget that we are the lofty children of a race whose lowest forms lie prostrate within the water, having no higher aspiration than the desire for food; and we cannot understand the possible degradation and moral wretchedness of Man, without knowing that his physical nature is rooted in all the material characteristics that belong to his type and link him even with the Fish. The moral and intellectual gifts that distinguish him from them are his to use or to abuse; he may, if he will, abjure his better nature and be Vertebrate more than Man. He may sink as low as the lowest of his type, or he may rise to a spiritual height that will make that which distinguishes him from the rest far more the controlling element of his being than that which unites him with them.

LOVE AND SKATES

IN TWO PARTS

PART II

CHAPTER VII

WADE DOWN!

The hugging of Wade by the happy pair had to be done metaphorically, since it was done in the sight of all Dunderbunk.

He had divined a happy result, when he missed Bill Tarbox from the arena, and saw him a furlong away, hand in hand with his reconciled sweetheart.

"I envy you, Bill," said he, "almost too much to put proper fervor into my congratulations."

"Your time will come," the foreman rejoined.

And says Belle, "I am sure there is a lady skating somewhere, and only waiting for you to follow her."

"I don't see her," Wade replied, looking with a mock-grave face up and down and athwart the river. "When you've all gone to dinner, I'll prospect ten miles up and down and try to find a good matrimonial claim that's not taken."

"You will not come up to dinner?" Belle asked.

"I can hardly afford to make two bites of a holiday," said Wade. "I've sent Perry up for a luncheon. Here he comes with it. So I cede my quarter of your pie, Miss Belle, to a better fellow."

"Oh!" cries Perry, coming up and bowing elaborately. "Mr. and Mrs. Tarbox, I believe. Ah, yes! Well, I will mention it up at Albany. I am going to take my Guards up to call on the Governor."

Perry dashed off, followed by a score of Dunderbunk boys, organized by him as the Purtett Guards, and taught to salute him as Generalissimo with military honors.

So many hundreds of turkeys, done to a turn, now began to have an effect upon the atmosphere. Few odors are more subtile and pervading than this, and few more appetizing. Indeed, there is said to be an odd fellow, a strictly American gourmand, in New York, who sits, from noon to dusk on Christmas-Day, up in a tall steeple, merely to catch the aroma of roast-turkey floating over the city,—and much good, it is said, it does him.

Hard skating is nearly as effective to whet hunger as this gentleman's expedient. When the spicy breezes began to blow soft as those of Ceylon's isle over the river and every whiff talked Turkey, the population of Dunderbunk listened to the wooing and began to follow its several noses—snubs, beaks, blunts, sharps, piquants, dominants, fines, bulgies, and bifids—on the way to the several households which those noses adorned or defaced. Prosperous Dunderbunk had a Dinner, yes, a DINNER, that day, and Richard Wade was gratefully remembered by many over-fed foundry-men and their over-fed families.

Wade had not had half skating enough.

"I'll time myself down to Skerrett's Point," he thought, "and take my luncheon there among the hemlocks."

The Point was on the property of Peter Skerrett, Wade's friend and college comrade of ten years gone. Peter had been an absentee in Europe, and smokes from his chimneys this morning had confirmed to Wade's eyes the rumor of his return.

Skerrett's Point was a mile below the Foundry. Our hero did his mile under three minutes. How many seconds under, I will not say. I do not wish to make other fellows unhappy.

The Point was a favorite spot of Wade's. Many a twilight of last summer, tired with his fagging at the Works to make good the evil of Whiffler's rule, he had lain there on the rocks under the hemlocks, breathing the spicy methyl they poured into the air. After his day's hard fight, in the dust and heat of the Foundry, with anarchy and unthrift, he used to take the quiet restoratives of Nature, until the murmur and fragrance of the woods, the cool wind, and the soothing loiter of the shining stream had purged him from the fevers of his task.

To this old haunt he skated, and kindling a little fire, as an old campaigner loves to do, he sat down and lunched heartily on Mrs. Purtett's cold leg,—cannibal thought!—on the cold leg of Mrs. Purtett's yesterday's turkey. Then lighting his weed,—dear ally of the lonely,—the Superintendent began to think of his foreman's bliss, and to long for something similar on his own plane.

"I hope the wish is father to its fulfilment," he said. "But I must not stop here and be spooney. Such a halcyon day I may not have again in all my life, and I ought to make the best of it, with my New Skates."

So he dashed off, and filled the little cove above the Point with a labyrinth of curves and flourishes.

When that bit of crystal tablet was well covered, the podographer sighed for a new sheet to inscribe his intricate rubricas upon. Why not write more stanzas of the poetry of motion on the ice below the Point? Why not?

Braced by his lunch on the brown fibre of good Mrs. Purtett's cold drumstick and thigh, Wade was now in fine trim. The air was more glittering and electric than ever. It was triumph and victory and paean in action to go flashing along over this footing, smoother than polished marble and sheenier than first-water gems.

Wade felt the high exhilaration of pure blood galloping through a body alive from top to toe. The rhythm of his movement was like music to him.

The Point ended in a sharp promontory. Just before he came abreast of it, Wade under mighty headway flung into his favorite corkscrew spiral on one foot, and went whirling dizzily along, round and round, in a straight line.

At the dizziest moment, he was suddenly aware of a figure, also turning the Point at full speed, and rushing to a collision.

He jerked aside to avoid it. He could not look to his footing. His skate struck a broken oar, imbedded in the ice. He fell violently, and lay like a dead man.

His New Skates, Testimonial of Merit, seem to have served him a shabby trick.

CHAPTER VIII

TÊTE-À-TÊTE

Seeing Wade lie there motionless, the lady–

Took off her spectacles, blew her great red nose, and stiffly drew near.

Spectacles! Nose! No,—the latter feature of hers had never become acquainted with the former; and there was as little stiffness as nasal redness about her.

A fresh start, then,—and this time accuracy!

Appalled by the loud thump of the stranger's skull upon the chief river of the State of New York, the lady—it was a young lady whom Wade had tumbled to avoid—turned, saw a human being lying motionless, and swept gracefully toward him, like a Good Samaritan, on the outer edge. It was not her fault, but her destiny, that she had to be graceful even under these tragic circumstances.

"Dead!" she thought. "Is he dead?"

The appalling thump had cracked the ice, and she could not know how well the skull was cushioned inside with brains to resist a blow.

She shuddered, as she swooped about toward this possible corpse. It might be that he was killed, and half the fault hers. No wonder her fine color, shining in the right parts of an admirably drawn face, all disappeared instantly.

But she evidently was not frightened.

She halted, kneeled, looked curiously at the stranger, and then proceeded, in a perfectly cool and self-possessed way, to pick him up.