126 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



overcrowding, each species has its own special sources 

 of death and destruction, which are of themselves 

 sufficient to compensate for excess in any past genera- 

 tion. 



" Nevertheless the foregoing should not be taken in 

 an absolute sense, nor yet too strictly, especially in 

 the case of those races which are not left entirely to the 

 care of Nature. Those which man takes care of com- 

 mencing with his own are more abundant than they 

 would be without his care, yet, as his power of taking 

 this care is limited, the increase which has taken place is 

 also fixed, and has long been restrained within impass- 

 able boundaries. Again, though in civilized countries 

 man, and all the animals useful to him, are more numer- 

 ous than in other places, yet their numbers never 

 become excessive, for the same power which brings them 

 into being destroys them as soon as they are found 

 inconvenient." * 



The Carnivora Sensation. 



Buffon begins his seventh volume with some remarks 

 on the carnivora in general, which I would gladly quote 

 at fuller length than my space will allow. He dwells 

 on the fact that the number, as well as the fecundity of 

 the insect races is greater than that of the mammalia, 

 and even than of plants ; and he points out that " violent 

 death is almost as necessary an usage as is the law 

 that we must all, in one way or another, die." This leads 

 him to the question whether animals can feel. "To 

 speak seriously,"(au reel) he says (and why this, if he had 



* Tom. vi. p. 252, 1756. 



