PEELIinNAKY OBSERVATIONS. 



as he is above the nearest of the brute creation, 

 whose prospects are not bounded by the decay 

 of his earthly body, the tenement of a spirit 

 which never dies — some animals are much more 

 elevated in the scale of being than others, and 

 more sensitively enjoy existence, while death, 

 not being anticipated, is but the pang of the 

 moment. In these animals, a brain encased in 

 a skvill, and a spinal cord connected with the 

 brain, and protected by a series of bones form- 

 ing the vertebral column, are always present. 

 Nevertheless, great is the difference between 

 animals thus endowed; and widely do they 

 vary in habits, manners, food, and instincts. 

 Some are furnished with limbs, and have the 

 body clothed with fur; they breathe the air, 

 they traverse the ground, and range mountain 

 and valley, plain and forest, desert and morass 

 — we allude to quadrupeds ; but of these, some, 

 as the seals, are very aquatic in their habits — 

 while others are completely so, as the blubber- 

 clad whales, which, though not possessing four 

 distinct limbs, belong to this class : they 

 plough the great deep. There is, again, a class 

 of air-breathing animals clad in feathers, and 

 furnished with four limbs, of whicli the anterior 

 pair are constructed as instruments of flight. 



