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A M E III (' A. 



at once a curious display of resource in mind, and an 

 unanswerable proof of its existence, independently of 

 all physical circumstances, as well as of its power 

 and capacity of overcoming-, and, as it were, trampling 

 upon these circumstances. 



But when we turn our attention to the other inha- 

 bitants of the American continent, we find man in his 

 colour, and in most of the essentials of his character, 

 proof against the variations of climate ; and the 

 hunter who drives the wild animals in the inhospitable 

 neighbourhood of Slave Lake might, without any 

 inconvenience, or, language exceptcd, almost any 

 means of noticing that he were a stranger, range 

 the continent from the one extremity to the other. 

 Habits, no doubt, affect the individual there, as well 

 as in other parts of the world. Vigorous exercises 

 brace the frame, while indolence dwarfs and softens 

 it. The Mexican or the Peruvian, squatted beside his 

 hut, and finding his food from a few banana trees 

 which cost him very little trouble, is not half so much 

 a man as the Araucani in his forest, or the Indian, 

 who, mounted on his wild horse, sweeps the wide 

 extent of the Pampas, free and fleet as the wind of 

 heaven. It must, however, not be lost sight of, that, 

 if not different races, the Mexicans and Peruvians 

 have long been subjected to very different treatment; 

 and treatment, too, the effect of which has been moral 

 rather than physical. The tyranny of the Mexican 

 emperors and the Peruvian incas seems to have 

 been severe enough, but it was nothing to the yoke 

 laid upon those ill-fated people by Spain. We 

 speak in terms of horror of the cruelties which have 

 been perpetrated upon the natives of Africa, in the 

 cultivated colonies of the western world ; but these 

 are nothing in point of hard labour, privation, or even 

 direct and palpable torture, to those which the native 

 Indians have borne in the mining districts. 



These circumstances are not mentioned with any 

 view of preserving the memory of deeds which cannot 

 be repaired, and therefore had better be lost in the 

 contemplation and construction of a better system ; 

 but they do show that, in considering the relative 

 adaptations between a country and its living inhabit- 

 ants, man must be treated separately and in a dif- 

 ferent manner. In the other animals, the organis- 

 ation is wholly at the control of physical circum- 

 stances, though, true to its origin, it maintains its spe- 

 cific character in spite of them, and always resumes the 

 natural form of that character in proportion as the 

 modifying circumstances are relaxed. But in man 

 there is always an active principle, which, however 

 dormant it may be, is capable of reversing the order 

 of physical circumstances, and creating a country for 

 itself in the forest, the marsh, the desert, nay, under 

 peculiar circumstances, and through the excitement of 

 powerful moral stimuli, in the very sea itself. See 

 MAN. 



But when we leave man and his moral excitements 

 and mental resources out of the question, the adapta- 

 tions of the American mammalia to the country which 

 they inhabit becomes a very interesting and useful 

 portion of natural history. Not that we are by any 

 means to conclude that they are the very best adapted 

 to the country, even before the plough hd the spade 

 have brought it within the limits of cultivation ; for 

 such is the adaptation of the whole earth to the pur- 

 poses of man, that if he will but bring the requisite 

 degree of skill and labour to the work, and often the 

 labour requires to be very light, he is certain to effect 



improvement. When the plains of Brazil and Para- 

 guay were first visited by Europeans, there was not 

 one grazing animal in the whole wide extent ; and 

 those who first turned loose upon them a few cattle 

 and horses, had probably neither wish nor idea that 

 those animals should become the staple wealth oft In- 

 country. Yet such has been the fact, and the animals 

 appear to have in a great measure grown their own 

 food. They have kept down the long and wiry stems, 

 brought something like a sod over the surface, and 

 actually in fact prepared the land for cultivation by 

 the plough ; the same result, although more recently, 

 and to a less extent, has taken place on some of the 

 plains in the interior of Australia ; and places where, 

 only half a century ago, a few kangaroos, leaping 

 from one tuft to another, found a scanty subsistence in 

 the midst of a wilderness of showy but unprofitable 

 plants, now look green and feed large and extensive 

 flocks and herds. These circumstances seem to in- 

 dicate that, in whatever hemisphere or part of the 

 world man is to become a cultivator, he must, in order 

 to act with proper and permanent effect, become a 

 shepherd and a herdsman ; and these two are the 

 resources to which he must look for remuneration 

 when the strength of his cropped land begins to fail. 



The most remarkable general circumstances about 

 the native mammalia of the American continent, are 

 the number of species, the few of these which are 

 common to America and the other parts of the 

 world, and their local distribution in latitude within 

 America itself. Of handed animals (qmadntmema), 

 about 82 species out of 1 87 (or thereabouts) are pe- 

 culiar to America, not one of them being found in 

 any other part of the world, and none of those of 

 the other parts being found there. Of bats then- 

 are about the same number of American species ; and 

 though there are 112 of these in the other parts of 

 the world, and only 102 of the handed animals, they 

 are as peculiar to the American continent. If we 

 leave out of our estimate the seals, which being ma- 

 rine animals, may be supposed to range freely round 

 the polar seas, we have only about eighteen species 

 of carnivorous animals (including varieties) which 

 are common to America and the eastern continent; 

 and some of these are aquatic, and even partially 

 marine, while others can range from continent to 

 continent upon the ice. But there are about 106 spe- 

 cies of carnivorous animals peculiar to America, not 

 one of which is found on the eastern continent ; and 

 it is probable that, from the vast tracts which remain 

 yet to be explored, the number may still be con- 

 siderably augmented. The marsupial animals of 

 America, of which there are eight known species, are 

 all peculiar to the country ; and so are the twenty 

 species of toothless animals, and the six pachyder- 

 mous. Besides the few carnivorous animals that 

 have been mentioned, the only species of land mam- 

 malia common to the two continents, or any part of 

 them, are seven rodentia out of 1.33 ; and among 

 these there are the beaver and the water-rat, both to 

 a certain extent aquatic animals ; and two ruminating 

 animals, the reindeer and the elk ; and in the spe- 

 cies which are considered as identical, there are 

 some variations. 



All the mammalia which are common to the two 

 continents, even to the extent of being considered as 

 climatal varieties of the same species, belong to the 

 northern parts of America, and almost all of them 

 to the extreme north, within the range of the pine 



