^l THE NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS 



IN THE 



PRIMEVAL FOREST. 



IF the vivid appreciation and sentiment of nature which differ so 

 greatly in nations of different descent, and if the natural character 

 and aspect of the countries which those nations now inhabit, or 

 which have been the scene of their earlier wanderings or abode, 

 have rendered different languages more or less rich in well defined 

 and characteristic expressions denoting the forms of mountains, the 

 state of vegetation, the appearance of the atmosphere, and the con- 

 tour and grouping of the clouds, it is also true that long use, and 

 perhaps their arbitrary employment by literary men, have diverted 

 many such words from their original meaning. Terms have been gra- 

 dually regarded as synonymous which ought to have been preserved 

 distinct ; and thus languages have lost part of the vigor and the 

 grace, as well as the fidelity, which they might otherwise have been 

 capable of imparting to descriptions of natural scenery and of the 

 characteristic physiognomy of a landscape. With the view of 

 showing how much an intimate acquaintance and contact with 

 nature, and the wants and necessities of a laborious nomade life, 

 may increase the riches of a language, I would recall the numerous 

 characteristic appellations which may be used in Arabic (*) and in 

 Persian to distinguish plains, steppes, and deserts, according as they 

 are quite bare, covered with sand, broken by tabular masses of rock, 

 or interspersed with patches of pasturage, or with long tracts occupied 

 by social plants. Scarcely less striking is it to observe in the old 

 Castilian idiom ( 2 ) the many expressions afforded for describing the 

 physiognomy of mountain-masses, and more particularly for desig- 

 nating those features which, recurring in every zone of the earth's 

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