ANIMALS. 351 



nature then punishes the transgression, and poison 

 marks the crime as capital. 



If, again, we compare vegetables and animals 

 with respect to the places where they are found, 

 we shall find them bearing a still stronger simi- 

 litude. The vegetables that grow in a dry and 

 sunny soil, are strong and vigorous, though not 

 luxuriant ; so also are the animals of such a cli- 

 mate. Those, on the contrary, that are the joint 

 product of heat and moisture, are luxuriant and 

 tender ; and the animals assimilating to the vege- 

 table food on which they ultimately subsist, are 

 much larger in such places than in others. Thus, 

 in the internal parts of South America and Africa, 

 where the sun usually scorches all above, while 

 inundations cover all below, the insects, reptiles, 

 and other animals, grow to a prodigious size : the 

 earth-worm of America is often a yard in length, 

 and as thick as a walking-cane ; the boiguacu, 

 which is the largest of the serpent kind, is some- 

 times forty feet in length ; the bats, in those 

 countries, are as big as a rabbit; the toads are 

 bigger than a duck, and their spiders are as large 

 as a sparrow. On the contrary, in the cold frozen 

 regions of the north, where vegetable nature is 

 stinted of its growth, the few animals in those 

 climates partake of the diminution ; all the wild 

 animals, except the bear, are much smaller than 

 in milder countries ; and such of the domestic 

 kinds as are carried thither, quickly degenerate, 

 and grow less. Their very insects are of the 

 minute kinds, their bees and spiders being not 

 half so large as those in the temperate zone. 



