STUDY X. 



393 



animals, the excretory organs contrafl with thofe 

 of nutrition. The long tails of horfes and bulls 

 are oppofed to the large fize of their heads and 

 of their necks, and come in as a fupplement to 

 the motions of thefe anterior parts, which are too 

 unwieldly to drive away the infeds that infeft 

 them. On the contrary, the broad tail of the pea- 

 cock forms a contraft with the length of the neck, 

 and the fmallnefs of the head, of that magnificent 

 bird. The proportions of other animals prefent 

 oppofitions which are no lefs harmonic, nor lefs 

 happily adapted to the neceffities of each fpecies*. 



Harmonies, 



* This Law of contrafts is, if I am not miftaken, a delicious 

 fource of obfervation and difcovery. The women, I repeat it, 

 always nearer to Nature than we ai'e, employ it continually in 

 the aflbrtment of the colours which they ufe in drefs, whereas 

 no Naturalift, as far as I know, has ever obferved that Nature 

 herfelf ads in conformity to it, in the harmony of all her 

 Works. Any one may find a demonftration of this, without 

 ftirring beyond his own houfe. For example, though there be 

 among dogs a fingular variety of colours, never was any one 

 feen red, green, or blue : but they are, for the mofl part, of two 

 oppofite tints, the one clear, and the other dark, in order that 

 in whatever part of the houfe they are, they may be percep^ 

 tible on the furniture, with the colour of which they would fre- 

 quently be confounded. 



But, though the colours of thofe animals be taken, as well as 

 thofe of moft quadrupeds, from the two extreme terms of the 

 progreflion of colours, that is, black and white, I do not recol- 



left 



