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Show 40 Additional Notes. animals and of insects, may have been acquired in a state preceding their present one; and have be~n derived. ~rom the parents to their offspring· by imitation, or other kmd of trad1t10n; thus the e?gs of the crocodile are at this day hatched !Jy the warmth of the sun 111 Egypt; and the ego·s of innumerable insects, and the spawn of fish, and of froo·s, in ~this climate are hatched by the vernal warmth: this might be ~he case of !Jirds in warm climates, in their early state of existence; and experience might have taught them to incubate their eggs, as they became more perfect animals, or removed themselves in to colder climates: thus the ostrich is said to sit 11pon its eggs only in the night in w<um situations, and Loth day and night in colder ones. This lo\·e of the mother in quadrupeds to the offspring, whom she licks and cleans, is so allied to the pleasure of the taste or palate, that nature seems t6 have had a great escape in the parent quadruped not devouring her offspring. Bitches, and cats, and sows, eat the placenta; and if a dead offspring occurs, I am told, that also is sometimes eaten, and yet the living offspring is spared; and by that nice distinction the progenies of those animals are saved from destruction! ' ~' Certior factus sum a viro rebus antiquissimis docto, quod legitur r "in Berosi operibus homines ante diluvium mulierum puerper~rum pla"_ centam edidisse, quasi cilmm delicatum in epu1is luxuriosis; et quod "hoc nefandissimo crimine movebatur Deus diluvio submergere ter" rarum in colas." ANoN. It may be finally concluded, that this affection from the parent to the progeny existed before animals were divided into sexes, and produced the beginning of sympathetic society, the source of which may perhaps be thus well accounted for; whenever the glandular system is stimulated into greater natural action within certain limits, an addition of pleasure is produced along with the increased secretion; this ~Ieasure arising from the activity of the system is supposed to constitute the happiness of existence, in contradistinction .to the eunui or tredium vitre; as .shown in Zoonomia, Sect. XXXIII. I. Hence the secretion of nutritious juices occasioned by the stimulus of an embryon or egg in the womb gives pleasure to the parent for a len~th of time; whence by association a similar pleasure may be oc. caswned to the parent by seeing and touching the egg or fetus after Storge. 'H its birth; and in lactescent animals .. by the new secretion of mJ'lk lain addit.wnal pleasure is produced m· g h·p s of the infant Th. ' as we as by Its e ll1·I ·s s·w n m· to the suck- Nature, one of thos~ fine Isalappetar~ t~ ~be one of the great secrets of one animal to another. ' mos lllVISl le cord s, wh 'I c 11 h ave bound The females of lactiferous animals have th . . pleasure in their systems more th tl us a passwn or wlet of · · an 1e males fro tl · g.Ivmg suck to their offspring; the want of the ~b. cc~lo 1ei~ powe: of either owing to the death of the )TO ·en . ~ f this passJ?n, of their situation in life t I 1 I g . y, OI to the unnatural fashwn . t ' no on y c epnves them of this innocent and b vir u~~ts slource of pleasure; but has occasioned diseases which have een 1a a to many of them. ' G |
