224 HOSTILITIES OF ANIMALS. 



diate utility to man. These he either cultivates with care, 

 or hunts for his prey. The ox, the sheep, the goat, and other 

 animals which are under his peculiar protection, he daily uses 

 for food. This is not cruelty. He has a right to eat them ; 

 for, like Nature, though he occasionally destroys domestic 

 animals, a timid and docile race of beings, by his culture and 

 protection he gives life and happiness to millions, which, 

 without his aid, could have no existence. The number of 

 individuals, among animals of this description, if they were 

 not cherished and defended by man, would be extremely lim- 

 ited ; for, by the mildness of their dispositions, the compara- 

 tive weakness of their arms, and the universal and strong 

 appetite for them by rapacious quadrupeds and birds of prey, 

 though the species might, perhaps, be continued, the number 

 of individuals would of necessity be very small. 



There is a wonderful balance in the system of animal de- 

 struction. If the general profusion of the animated produc- 

 tions of nature had no other check than the various periods 

 to which their lives, when not extinguished by hostilities of 

 one kind and another, are limited, the whole would soon be 

 annihilated by an universal famine, and the earth, instead of 

 every where teeming with animals, would, unless repeopled 

 by a new creation, exhibit nothing but a mute, a lifeless, and 

 an inactive scene. If even a single species were permitted 

 to multiply without disturbance, the food of other species 

 would be exhausted, and, of course, a period would be put to 

 their existence. The herbivorous and frugivorous races, if 

 not restrained by the carnivorous, would soon increase to a 

 hurtful degree. Carnivorous animals are the barriers fixed 

 by nature to noxious inundations of other kinds. The car- 

 nivorous tribes may be compared to the hoe and the pruning- 

 hook, which, by diminishing the number of plants when too 

 close, or lopping off their luxuriances, make the others grow 

 to greater perfection. To these swarms of insects, which 

 cover the surface of the earth, are opposed an army of birds 

 an active, a vigilant, and a voracious race. Hares, rabbits, 

 mice, rats, are exposed to the depredations of carnivorous quad- 

 rupeds and birds. The larger cattle, as the ox, the deer, the 

 sheep, &,c., are not exempted from enemies; and man, by 

 the superiority of his mental powers, checks the multiplica- 

 tion of the carnivorous tribes, and maintains the balance and 

 empire of the animal system. Those species which are en- 

 dowed with uncommon fertility, have the greatest number of 

 enemies. The caterpillar, the puceron, and insects in gene- 



