66 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



bads of our own reafon, as it is that of the reafon 

 of Nature. 



• By confulting this, we {hall find, that if fuch 

 and fuch a carnivorous animal is long-lived, as 

 the crow for inftance, it is becaufe his fervices and 

 his experience are long neceflary for purifying the 

 earth, in places whofe impurities are inceflfantly 

 renewing, and which are frequently at great dif- 

 tances from each other. If, on the contrary, an 

 innocent animal lives but a little while, it is be- 

 caufe his flefh and his fkin are neceflary to Man. 

 If the domeftic dog, by his death, frequently dif- 

 fufes forrow over the children of the family, whofe 

 intimate friend and fellow-boarder he was, Nature, 

 undoubtedly, intended to give them, in the lofs of 

 an animal fo worthy of the affections and the re- 

 gret of the heart of Man, the firft experience of 

 the privations with which human life is to be ex- 

 ercifed. 



The duration of an animal's life is fometimes 

 proportioned to the duration of the vegetable on 

 which it feeds. A multitude of caterpillars are 

 born, and die with the leaves by which their tran- 

 iitory exiftence is fupported. There are infects 

 whole being is limited to five hours ; fuch is the 

 ephemera. This fpecies of fly, about half as large 



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