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 



