ABUNDANCE OF LIFE. 273 



inclement regions, and where so little vegeta 

 tion exists as in the Arctic zone, there must 

 only be very few living animals, and those few 

 of a dwarfish and miserable nature ; but, on 

 the contrary, no portion of the surface of the 

 globe more abounds in animal life, from the 

 minute animalcule which, although too small 

 to be seen in detail without a microscope, are 

 yet in the aggregate so numberless as to dis 

 colour the ocean to the huge walrus and the 

 vast mysticetus with his congeners. All this 

 life hangs together from link to link in a 

 beautiful chain : thus the different animalcule 

 prey on one another; the shrimps and small 

 fishes prey on the larger animalcule ; the seals 

 and walruses and the numerous sea-fowl prey 

 on the shrimps and the fishes ; the bear preys 

 on the seal and the walrus, and the fox on the 

 sea-fowl. 



The Polar bear seems to me to be nothing 

 more than a variety of the bears inhabiting 

 Northern Europe, Asia, and America; and it 

 surely requires no very great stretch of imagi 

 nation to suppose that this variety was origi 

 nally created, not as we see him now, but by 

 individuals of Ursus arctos in Siberia, who, 

 finding their means of subsistence running 



