FUNCTIONS OF QUADRUPEDS. 21 



Mouse, the hairs are composed of rings : in the Opossum 

 they are knotted : in the Waier Shrew they are both annular 

 and knotted : and in the Field Mouse they are set laterally 

 with smaller hairs. 



I cannot conclude this introductory essay without re- 

 marking, that all the parts of the animal frame afford 

 very decisive proofs of the superintendance and wisdom of 

 a Divine Power. How, beyond all comparison, are our 

 astonishment and admiration excited, when we contemplate 

 the wonders of nature, in competition with the puny efforts 

 of human ingenuity. Whether we consider the skeleton or 

 frame- work of the body, varying as it does in different ani- 

 mals precisely according to their necessities or wants; the 

 muscles and tendons which clothe this skeleton, connect 

 its parts, and, at the instigation of the will, put it into 

 motion; the manner in which these are renewed, as they 

 wear away, by nutrition and circulation; or, beyond all, 

 the beautiful contrivances by which so complicated and 

 delicate a structure is kept in order through life: we are 

 compelled to acknowledge, that they could only have been 

 formed by a Being infinite in goodness and in power, the 

 traces of whose workmanship are visible through every part 

 of them. We must be infatuated indeed, if we can for a 

 moment believe that all this excellence is the mere effect pf 

 chance. " If with 10,000 dice, (says an elegant and dis- 

 tinguished writer of the last century,) we should always 

 fling the same number, or see, after every throw, just five 

 times less, or five times more, than the number in the throw 

 which immediately preceded it, who would not imagine 

 that some invisible power directed the cast? Yet this is 

 the proceeding that we constantly find in the operations of 

 mature. And it is much more probable, that an hundred 

 millions of dice should be casually thrown an hundred 



C 3 millions 



