COVERING OF ANIMALS. 269 



color are most remarkable in our domestic fowls. In a 

 brood of chickens, though all of them proceed from the same 

 parents, not one of them has the same colors with another. 



Domestication not only changes the external appearances 

 of animals, but alters and modifies their natural dispositions. 

 The dog, for example, when in a state of liberty, is a rapa- 

 cious quadruped, and hunts and devours the weaker species. 

 B it, after he has submitted to the dominion of man, he relin- 

 quishes his natural ferocity, and is converted into a mean, 

 servile, patient and parasitical slave. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



OF THE COVERING, MIGRATION, AND TORPIDITY OP ANIMALS. 



' ALTHOUGH man is naturally the most defenceless of ani- 

 mals, and the most exposed to suffer from the attacks of cold 

 and the rigors of inhospitable climates, yet, by the sagacity 

 with which he has devised means of guarding against the 

 vicissitudes of the seasons, and protecting himself against the 

 various degrees of heat and cold which he encounters, he has 

 been enabled to brave the dangers of every climate, and es- 

 tablish himself over a great part of the globe. Neither the 

 cold of the polar, nor the heat of the equatorial regions, has 

 been sufficient to deter him ; but he is capable of enjoying 

 the necessaries, comforts, and even luxuries of life, at either 

 extreme. 



' But the constitutions of other animals are not so accom- 

 modating. They do not adapt themselves so readily to 



skin of a peculiar and unnatural whiteness, white hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. 

 TJie iris is also of a rosy tint, and the pupils still more deeply red. This imperfection 

 seems to consist in an entire absence of the coloring principle of all these parts, 

 which leaves the bare texture of the parts themselves without any color except that 

 of the fluid circulating in them. It occurs among all the varieties of mankind, but 

 more commonly among the dark ones. Stories have been told of whole tribes of 

 Albinoes, or white negroes, but they have proved unfounded. Some persons are 

 only partially affected in this way, and thus present a spotted or pie-bald appearance* 

 and it is to be remarked that if the eyes or any part of the hair be included in any of 

 the spots which remain in the natural state, they retain their natural color and ap- 

 pearance The same is the case with inferior animals, as may be frequently observed 

 in the spotted, black, and white rabbits. The white rabbit is a true Albino, as is the 

 white mouse, and they both have red eyes, unless the eyes happen to be include I to 

 R spot which remains in its natural state.' 



23* 



