564 



BOS. 



than animals of any other class, are necessarily more 

 influenced by the physical circumstances of that 

 surface and of the air over it. So general is this 

 character from locality, that it is found not only in 

 wild animals, but in domestic ones, and even in man ; 

 and so powerful is the operation of those physical 

 circumstances, that their effect is fully as conspicuously 

 seen in the animals, as the circumstances which pro- 

 duce it are in general observation. Our observation 

 of the productions of nature must always be com- 

 paratively imperfect, therefore, if we do not take this 

 effect of locality along with us. Nor does it at all 

 require great differences of latitude, or of climate as 

 dependent upon latitude ; for all circumstances which 

 alter in any way the characters of a place, alter to 

 the same extent all that are produced in that place, 

 or that inhabit it ; and in the case of the animals, 

 those which are the most plastic to climate, and 

 therefore the best for domestication, show it most 

 conspicuously. Intercourse tends to lessen it, and 

 those who are much in the habit of travelling, and 

 who travel for business or for pleasure rather than for 

 observation, are apt to become insensible to it, unless 

 in cases which are very striking ; but it is a power 

 which should be carefully kept alive as the very 

 foundation of knowledge, that is, of the intelligence 

 which is the parent of knowledge, inasmuch as the 

 whole of human knowledge, be it what it may, is 

 either directly or it may ultimately be traced to a 

 knowledge of differences. The chief difference be- 

 tween an intelligent man and a dull one is, that the 

 former can see small differences and the latter cannot. 



England is jiot the best country for seeing those 

 characters produced by locality, because in England 

 both man and animals shift about, and even the seeds 

 and germs of cultivated plants are yearly changed 

 from district to district, all of which changes tend 

 greatly to the advantage of the country. But even 

 in England there may be a difference traced between 

 the inhabitants of any two valleys, and if those valleys 

 open to different aspects or different seas the differ- 

 ence will always be more conspicuous ; and if it be 

 found more so in one, it will be found more so in all, 

 whether natural or cultivated, if the latter have 

 remained long enough to be affected by the local 

 influence. 



The buffalo and all the animals which inhabit the 

 marshy or permanently humid places on the lower 

 rivers of India, afford a remarkable instance of this ; 

 and the influence extends to the neighbouring plain. 

 No matter for the class to which the animal belongs, 

 for the locality is stamped upon its appearance ; and 

 to those who are well acquainted with the differences 

 which known places produce, the animal of itself tells 

 at once whence it comes. Even the cattle, as they 

 approach these humid jungles, have the skin much 

 exposed to the action of the air, and formed into 

 folds in those places which are subject to much 

 motion. The shape too has fewer angularities than 

 in the inhabitants of dry upland pastures (this par- 

 ticular is remarkable in the human race). The whole 

 body becomes, heavier, more expressive of strength, 

 but less of activity ; the legs become stouter, and 

 the feet broader. Thus from the bullock on the 

 plains of India, we may trace a gradation through 

 the gayal and the buffalo to the rhinoceros and the 

 elephant. And it is worthy of remark, that the 

 horns or armature of the head of the rhinoceros, 

 though it is produced upon a different part, and has 



no core of bone, is formed of horn produced by the 

 epidermis, and resembling, in the matter of which it 

 is composed, the horns of the ox tribe. We could, 

 therefore, easily fancy the rhinoceros to be a link con- 

 necting the herbaceous elephant with the herbaceous 

 buffalo ; and as being the last of the horned animals 

 in coming down from the polar regions to the equa- 

 torial, just as the rein-deer of the eastern continent 

 is the first. 



. There is one curious gradation i those horned 

 animals, taking them from the rein-deer to the rhino- 

 ceros, which, properly worked out, might throw much 

 light upon the relation between animal and climate,' 

 and thus be of great use not only in speculative 

 natural history, but in the rearing of animals, and the 

 increasing of their value in an economical point of 

 view, without which natural history, pleasant though 

 it be, is but a barren subject. And here we cannot 

 help remarking that, however tedious the tracing of 

 these general analogies may feel to those who look 

 merely for the surface anecdote of natural history, 

 and are incapable (of course because they are triflers 

 in all matters) of entering into the spirit of them, yet 

 it is because those analogies have not been attended 

 to that natural history has failed in producing those 

 practical results those extensions of the dominion of 

 man over the animals those additions to the most 

 productive power of wealth and comfort in all coun- 

 tries, which we have so much right to expect from it. 

 We are aware that in this matter the prejudice both 

 of the unlettered and the lettered vulgar is against us ; 

 but truth and reason are on our side, and in their train 

 the analogies of all the sciences, in which the gene- 

 ralising of the observed facts and the tracing of the 

 relations have evolved the law, which law once 'dis- 

 covered speeds onward, as the beams of the sun, illu- 

 minating and warming as it proceed?, and turning 

 even the pestilent fogs and vapours of the night into 

 the immediate means of fertility and of health. We 

 call upon the reader who is not accustomed to view 

 natural history in this light, to think of what has been 

 done for and by the science of .astronomy. Mankind 

 were star-gazing long enough before they began to 

 attend to the analogies, and by their assistance to 

 arrive at the grand law of the celestial motions ; and 

 what did they make of it? Why ridiculous blunders 

 and superstitious fears and mummeries ; nor was it till 

 the ardent mind of Kepler, bent upon tracing tho 

 analogies or^ as it was then called, seeking " the 

 harmonies of the spheres," got hold of the observa- 

 tions of Tycho, as the proper instruments of his 

 labour, that the several branches of the grand law of 

 planetary motion were so much as named. This, 

 however, was the step, and thenceforth observation 

 ceased to be desultory, and became useful. Newton 

 followed, and completed what Kepler had begun ; 

 and now there is not a man in civilised society who 

 does not owe much of his personal accommodation 

 to that giant effort of mind, neither is there one useful 

 machine upon earth, no, not even the body of an 

 animal, which does not work according to, and to a 

 considerable extent in consequence of, the law of the 

 heavens. 



But if this has been the result of the discovery of 

 one law, the centre of whose action (the sun) is at 

 the distance of a hundred millions of miles, and which 

 at most is but a law of dead matter, what may we 

 not expect when science shall once fairly grapple 

 with natural history, and the law of life shall be as 



