ANALOGY OF THE LION WITH THE VULTURE. 185 
their respective affinities; while their analogical 
similitudes are drawn from those left in the lighter 
scale. Nor are such relations confined to one class, 
or to one division, of animals; for the further the 
student proceeds, the more universally can he trace 
them throughout nature. 
(125.) It is a common and a just comparison, to 
liken the vulture and the eagle to the lion; the two 
first being among birds, what the latter is among 
quadrupeds, —the tyrants of their respective races. 
“© The eagle he is lord above, 
The lion lord below.” 
This comparison, moreover, is rendered doubly 
accurate by a singular analogy of structure, which, 
as we do not remember to have seen it noticed, may 
be here advantageously introduced. The lion, — 
apparently to prevent the adhesion and drying of 
fragments of his bloody meal upon his skin, where 
it might putrefy and create sores, — is provided with 
a bushy mane, which prevents the blood or gore 
from coming into immediate contact with his skin, 
and which he can thus shake off with ease. Now, if 
we look to the greatest number of the vultures, we 
find that nature, to effect the same purpose, has 
given to them a similar provision. They also have 
a mane upon their neck ; not, indeed, of hairs, but 
of feathers longer than the others, and generally so 
stiff and glossy, that any substance which may come 
upon them can be shaken off with ease. The vul- 
ture is, then, the lion among birds; and affords 
one of the thousand proofs, that relations of analogy 
can be found in animals of different classes, no less 
