This is a machine, so constructed by means of weights, levers, springs, wheels, etc. as to move for a considerable time, as if it were endued with animal life. According to this definition, clocks, watches, and all machines of that kind, may be ranked as a species of automata. But the word is most commonly applied to such machines as are made in the form of men and other animals, at the same time that their internal machinery is so contrived, that they seem voluntarily to act like the animals they represent. Archytas of Tarentum, who lived A. C. 400, is said to have made a wooden pigeon that could fly. It is also recorded, that Archimedes made similar automata; that Regiomontanus made a wooden eagle, which flew forth from the city of Nuremburg, met the emperor, saluted him, and returned; also that he made an iron fly, which flew out of his hand at a feast, and returned again after flying about the room. Dr. Hook made the model of a flying chariot, capable of supporting itself in the air. Many other surprising automata have been exhibited in the present age. M. Vaucanson made a duck, which could eat, drink, and imitate exactly the voice of a natural one; and what is still more surprising, the food it swallowed was evacuated in a digested state, or at least considerably altered, on the principles of solution. The wings, viscera, and bones, were so formed, as greatly to resemble those of a living duck; and the actions of eating and drinking showed the strongest resemblance, even to muddling the water with its bill.

M. de Droz, of la Chaux de Fonds, in the province of Neuchatel, has also executed some curious pieces of mechanism. One was a clock, presented to the king of Spain, which had, among other curiosities, a sheep that imitated the bleating of a natural one, and a dog that watched a basket of fruit, and which barked and snarled if any one attempted to take it away; if it was actually taken, it would bark till it was restored. A son of this gentleman has also made some extraordinary pieces, particularly an oval gold snuff-box, about four inches long, three broad, and one and a half thick. It is double, having an horizontal partition, with a lid to each of its parts. One contains snuff; but in the other, as soon as the lid is opened, there rises up a very small bird, (for it is only three-quarters of an inch from the beak to the extremity of the tail,) of green-enamelled gold, sitting on a gold stand, which immediately wagging its tail and shaking its wings, and opening its bill of white-enamelled gold, pours forth a clear melodious song, capable of filling a room of twenty or thirty feet square with its melody. The same gentleman exhibited an automaton in England, of the figure of a man, as large as life. It held in its hand a metal style, under which was a card of Dutch vellum. A spring was then touched, and the internal machinery being thus set a-going, the figure began to draw elegant portraits, and likenesses of the king and queen facing each other; and it was curious to observe, with what precision the figure lifted up its pencil, in the transition of it from one point of the picture to another, without making the least blunder whatever; for instance, in passing from the forehead to the eye, nose, and chin, or from the waving curls of the hair to the ear, etc. The first card being finished, the figure rested, until a second was completed, and so on through five separate cards put to it, on all of which it delineated different subjects, but five or six was the extent of its surprising powers.