270 MANKIND IDENTICAL IN SPECIES. SECT. XXVII. 



crease of temperature. The dispersion of insects ne- 

 cessarily follows that of the vegetables which supply 

 them with food ; and in general it is observed, that each 

 kind of plant is peopled by its peculiar inhabitants. 

 Each species of bird has its particular haunt, notwith- 

 standing the locomotive powers of the winged tribes. 

 The emu is confined to Australia, the condor never 

 leaves the Andes, nor the great eagle the Alps ; and 

 although some birds are common to every country, they 

 are few in number. Quadrupeds are distributed in the 

 same manner wherever man has not interfered. Such 

 as are indigenous in one continent are not the same with 

 their congeners in another ; and with the exception of 

 some kinds of bats, no warm-blooded animal is indigenous 

 v in the Polynesian Archipelago, nor in any of the islands 

 on the borders of the central part of the Pacific. 



In reviewing the infinite variety of organized beings 

 that people the surface of the globe, nothing is more re- 

 markable than the distinctions which characterize the 

 different tribes of mankind, from the ebony skin of the 

 torrid zone to the fair and ruddy complexion of Scandi- 

 navia a difference which existed in the earliest recorded 

 times, since the African is represented in the Sacred 

 Writings to have been as black as he is at the present 

 day, and the most ancient Egyptian paintings confirm 

 that truth ; yet it appears from a comparison of the 

 principal circumstances relating to the animal economy 

 or physical character of the various tribes of mankind, 

 that the different races are identical in species. Many 

 attempts have been made to trace the various tribes 

 back to ^pommon origin, by collating the numerous 

 languages^vhich are or have been spoken. Some 

 classes of these have few or no words in common, yet 

 exhibit a remarkable analogy in the laws of their gram- 

 matical construction. The languages spoken by the 

 native American nations afford examples of these ; in- 

 deed the refinement in the grammatical construction of 

 the tongues of the American savages leads to the belief, 

 that they must originally have been spoken by a much 

 more civilized class of mankind. Some tongues have 

 little or no resemblance in structure, though they cor- 

 respond extensively in their vocabularies, as the Syrian 



