of Mammiferous Animals. 307 



torments of love will come to disturb it. Then impelled by a 

 blind fury, it seeks out a female, calls her with loud cries, fol- 

 lows her traces, overtakes her, kills her if she resists and is un- 

 able to flee, satisfies his wants if she participates in them, and if 

 he remains victorious over the rivals which he may have to en- 

 counter. Presently his strength fails, his ardour is blunted- 

 and he returns to his retreat to seek a repose which has become 

 necessary to him, and which the passion of love, the only one 

 which his situation puts him in the way of experiencing, will 

 periodically come to disturb once every year. 



If, instead of a herbivorous, we take a carnivorous animal, 

 what shall we have to add to the uniform picture which we have 

 traced ? Instead of pasturing, this new animal will lie in wait 

 for its prey, or pursue it, which will subject it to pains and ef- 

 forts that would have been unnecessary had it fed upon vege- 

 table substances. More rest will then perhaps be necessary for 

 it ; but the nutritive qualities of flesh rendering the recurrence 

 of hunger less frequent, will allow him to indulge in it. Thus 

 all the diff*erence which this animal presents to us, compared 

 with the former is, that the searching for its food may require 

 of it more or less cunning, prudence and strength, whether it 

 has only to provide for its own wants, or moreover to supply 

 those of its young. 



What is the conclusion to be drawn from the life of such ani- 

 mals ? Nothing more than from the life of animals subjected 

 to the closest captivity. But let us drag both from the nearly 

 complete state of inactivity in which we have supposed them to 

 be living ; let us place them, as they are naturally placed upon 

 the earth, under the most complicated circumstances ; let us 

 vary their situation, as it varies amid the fortuitous occurrences 

 which are continually taking place here below ; let us multiply 

 their wants, and even increase i\\e dangers to which they are 

 exposed ; let new relations suggest, as it were new desires and 

 new resources ; and then we shall see another picture unfold it- 

 self before us. It would still, however, be erroneous to sup- 

 pose, that the state in which animals naturally occur upon 

 the earth, however complicated it may be, is the best adapted 

 to forward their developement. It is not the ordinary conditions 

 of animal existence, those which first present themselves in all 



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