QQ Importance of the Study 



land and Madagascar, two countries in wliich nature is beautiful and va- 

 ried, as in our own climates, but so different, that one would suppose it 

 animated by another sun ; South America, which has been truly called a 

 New World ; Africa, the vast country of monsters, as it was termed by 

 the ancients ; finally, India, an inexhaustible region to the naturalist, 

 where the creations of all the other parts of the globe seem represented, 

 by some beings dispersed, and as it were, lost in the midst of a creation 

 altogether peculiar ; such are the parts of the globe whose natural riches, 

 explored for many years, arc now, and will no doubt continue to be, the 

 principal objects of the efforts and researches of travellers. 



" The knowledge of the animated beings, or, to confine myself to the 

 subject of my more especial researches, the knowledge of the animals of 

 these countries, is found to be fruitful in curious, singular, and unexpect- 

 ed results. The zoologist is delighted with the study of those beings, in 

 which each organ, each function, each habit, is in contrast with the or- 

 gans, functions and habits of the animals of our own Europe. The pro- 

 gress of his observation conducts him, at each step, over a new land, 

 and, by disclosing to him a multitude of unknown facts, imparts to him 

 that pleasure, so highly relished by an instructed mind, which arises from 

 the discovery and contemplation of new objects ; a pleasure to which even 

 the most ignorant are not insensible, urged onwards unconsciously by one 

 of the noblest instincts, — the innate desire of seeing and knowing. 



" The comparative observation of the animals of different parts of 

 Europe cannot present us with similar attractions. Must it follow, then, 

 that the study of these must be without interest .'' Can they not lead us 

 to some results of advantage to science ? Are the facts most striking for 

 their novelty, necessarily the most fertile in instruction ? We think not ; 

 and perhaps the following considerations will free this opinion from the 

 paradoxical character which it seems at first sight to present. 



" Undoubtedly, if zoology had no other aim than the drawing up of a 

 catalogue of the innumerable animals which replenish the surface of 'the 

 globe — the further enrichment of a catalogue already immense ; in other 

 words, if the discovery of new species were the only kind of progress re- 

 quired by science, the comparison of beings belonging to regions separat- 

 ed by enormous distances, or by important differences of temperature or 

 climate, would alone deserve to become the subject of our labours, since 

 it alone could present us with organic diversities rendered evident by de- 

 cided and remarkable characters. But does zoology deserve the name of 

 science, if it continive purely descriptive and unphilosophical, and lead to 

 no other results than such as flow from labours of that kind .'' And if it be 

 of importance to it to enumerate animal species with exactness, and care- 

 fully to note the differences which distinguish them, are not the origin 

 and formation of species, the nature and causes of their differences^ like- 

 wise questions of real, naj', of immense interest ? Now, it is evident that 

 it is, above all other things, the comparison of beings in countries but 

 little removed, and differing little from each other, that can throw light 



