MAMMAL1A and CETAC EA. In some species of the for mer class, and in almost all of the latter, the cellular membrane that lies between the skin and the muscles, contains a prodigious quantity of fat. This is particu larly seen in hogs, bears, seals, and walruses; and in the two latter tribes, the fat is nearly fluid, resembling the blubber of the cetacea. In several species of mammalia that pass the winter in a torpid state, as bears, marmots, dormice, kc. there arc numerous large cells that serve as reservoirs, in which the fat accumulates during the warm season, and from which it is gradually absorbed while they continue in a state of torpor, thus supplying the body with that nourishment which it cannot then receive from any other source.
Besides the integuments which we have described as common to man and the inferior animals, there is in many of these latter a particular set of muscular organs that pro perly belong to the integuments, of which they regulate the motions. These muscles constitute what is called
the fleshy pannicle, (/ianniculus carnosus,) and are mi nutely described by Cuvier in the thirteenth article of his fourteenth lecture.
The fleshy pannicle is most remarkable in those NI Am MALIA that have their bodies covered with scales,prickles, or quills, as in the pangolins, the hedgehog, and the por cupine. In the two former animals, and in the armadillos, it is the principal muscular apparatus that enables them to coil up their bodies into a globular shape, and thus re sist the attacks of their enemies.
Among BIRDS, the fleshy pannicle is most conspicu ous in those species which have the power of moving at pleasure the feathers of the crest, neck, or tail, as in the cockatoos, h-oopoes, herons, &c. but it is seen to great ad vantage in the goose.