234< STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



Nor is this all : the whole of these gigantic creatures 

 feed upon herbage, grass, or the leaves of trees. 

 Let us imagine, then, for a moment, what would be 

 the state of those countries, as the vegetable world 

 is now constructed, which should be inhabited by- 

 thousands of such monsters, as the tropical regions 

 now are by the parrots. The consumption of food 

 necessary to support such creatures would be 

 enormous. No plains would be sufficiently fruitful 

 to graze thousands of elephants and rhinoceroses 

 of hundreds of species. The trees would be bared 

 of their leaves, and verdure would disappear. The 

 earth, in fact, would be as much devastated as if 

 perpetual swarms of locusts had stripped it of its 

 clothing ; and thousands of these devouring mon- 

 sters would annually perish for want of food, poison 

 the air, and create pestilence and famine. Such 

 results, however frightful, are too obvious to be de- 

 nied. The paucity, therefore, of pachydermatous 

 quadrupeds, instead of proving a want of uniformity 

 and consistency in the groups of nature, is the very 

 peculiarity which manifests the harmony and de- 

 sign with which they were balanced and adjusted, 

 by Infinite Wisdom, from the beginning. The 

 pachydermatous quadrupeds, considering their im- 

 mense size, are proportioned to the rest of the 

 animal creation, throughout which we find that great 

 bulk is restricted to few individual forms, while 

 excessive minuteness is extended to countless mil- 

 lions. What, therefore, would at first seem to con- 

 stitute the Pachydermata an imperfect group, is, in 

 reality, its highest perfection. If its chasms were 

 fewer, or narrower, it would possess more forms, 



