MAMMALIA. 



together in one common charnel house, deep under a 

 covering of earth which nature has thrown upon them ; 

 and so slumber in Europe ; but the living type of the 

 one, or the lingering species of a genus which had 

 once been numerous, is found in South-eastern Asia ; 

 that of another is found in Southern Africa, and that of 

 a third in South America. The}' have not yet been 

 met with we believe, but it is by no means impossible 

 that those ancient sepulchres may contain the bones 

 of the marsupial animals of Australia, widely as they 

 differ from the existing mammalia of every other 

 region on the surface of the globe. Those monumental 

 bones are, in very many of the species, found in no 

 stinted numbers, but in heaps which, ere the mould 

 covered them in the lapse of years, must have cum- 

 bered the surface. They have clearly perished by 

 what may be called the hand of nature, that is, they 

 have become extinct in virtue of that law which God 

 has given for the earth's government. That law is a 

 law of infinite wisdom and goodness ; and therefore, 

 whether the numbers of an animal have remained 

 stationary, whether they have increased, whether they 

 have diminished, or whether they have become 

 extinct recently or so remotely that no record of 

 the time remains, we must conclude that all those 

 changes, in every case where they have not been 

 brought about by the interference of man's partial 

 and imperfect knowledge and judgment, have been 

 all for the very best. 



If therefore we ask why nature has blotted out, from 

 her living catalogue, such and such a race ? the an- 

 swer is plain and palpable there remained no longer 

 any place in nature for the exterminated species, it 

 had no useful office to perform for the general benefit 

 of the system, and therefore it was cast away as a 

 vain and unprofitable thing. 



We have no room to enter upon the train of inquiry 

 to which this naturally gives rise, as to whether the 

 extinction of so many races of animals is an evidence 

 that our globe is waxing old, and must one day or 

 other, in spite of the powers of local renovation which 

 are contained in it, undergo at some time or other 

 that doom to which its most tiny inhabitant is des- 

 tined. We have adduced the circumstance merely 

 as a proof, the most exclusively natural which we can 

 have, that every species of animal has its distinct 

 place and office assigned it in the system, from which 

 place and office it can no more of itself depart than 

 the earth or any other planet can of itself break away 

 from the governing influence of the sun, and career 

 as a devious wanderer through the regions of space. 



The continuation of the race is, as we have shown, 

 only to keep the necessary office in nature full, and 

 according as the general working of nature maintains 

 steadily, increases, diminishes, or abolishes the office, 

 the numbers of the animal remain stationary, augment, 

 fall off, or finally depart. The only other use, con- 

 sidered with reference to nature, is, as we have hinted, 

 the feeding ; that which the animal consumes is a 

 surplus which, if suffered to remain, would injure the 

 rest, destroy the balance, and derange the whole sys- 

 tem of nature. This, however, is guarded against in 

 the most effectual manner. In South America for 

 instance, the gigantic megatherium has been laid in 

 the dust, it may be to make room for the ox and the 

 horse, imported from Europe, and now the chief 

 wealth of the inhabitants. In other parts of the 

 world the change has been similar. It is the mighty 

 that are fallen ; and it may be that because the feeble 



arm of man is unable " to draw out leviathan with a 

 hook, or guide behemoth with a bridle," that those 

 giant creatures have been taken out of his way, in 

 order that he might clothe ihe hills with flocks, people 

 the meadows with herds, turn the furrow by the 

 labour of the all tractable horse, and thus subdue the 

 earth and reign over it, according to the arracious 

 promise made to him ut his creation. This is a part 

 of the study of the mammalia which is truly inviting, 

 but we dare not enter further upon it, lest it should 

 tempt us beyond the bounds even of rational specu- 

 lation. 



The animal is not only useful in removing that 

 superfluous substance, animal or vegetable, which it 

 appropriates as its food, for the refuse of that food, 

 the portion of it which is unfit for assimilation by the 

 animal, together with the remains of the animal itself 

 after it has performed its appointed work, and ren- 

 dered up its life, are most useful in promoting the 

 growth of the vegetable tribes, which in their turn 

 supply the food of by far the greater number of land 

 animals, whether mammalia or any other class. There 

 is thus in the system a perfect cycle of reciprocity by 

 one supporting another, that other a third, the third 

 a fourth, and so on till, at the end of a succession 

 which we do not see, the last supports the first ; and 

 thus the system of terrestrial nature has all the sta- 

 bility and returning into itself which we find in the 

 orbit of a celestial body, at the same time that it 

 admits of a countless number of motions and changes. 



We must not, however, endeavour to trace this 

 cycle in any one of the kingdoms of nature taken 

 alone ; for, if we do, error must be the inevitable 

 consequence. There neither is, nor can there be, a 

 complete chain or circle of succession in any one of 

 the kingdoms, into which, for convenience of study, 

 we arrange the productions of nature. The chain to 

 which we allude is not confined to the mammalia, or 

 to animated nature taken in its utmost latitude. It 

 extends to the earth, the air, and the sea, in all their 

 successive phenomena, whether momentary, diurnal, 

 annual, or for longer periods of time ; it extends to 

 the sun, whose influence furnishes the grand stimulus 

 to the whole system of sublunary things ; it even ex- 

 tends, though by fainter shades shades not traceable 

 by us, to the whole solar system ; and by shades 

 fainter still, from that system to the whole material 

 universe, the conception of which is infinitude to the 

 human mind. 



Thus, it has always happened, that when a zoologist, 

 a botanist, or any other labourer in one detached 

 portion of the great field of nature, has attempted to 

 trace a regular succession in the productions of that 

 portion, from the most simple to the most complicated, 

 it has invariably been a failure, and wherever there has 

 been candour enough to own it, the breaks in the 

 pretended chain have been more numerous than the 

 continuities. The balance and perfection are in the 

 whole; and in order to preserve these, one depart- 

 ment must necessarily be frequently breaking in upon 

 another, and the grand innovator time changing the 

 whole, by degrees too slow no doubt for our perceiv- 

 ing them by immediate observation, but still not the 

 less certain upon that account. A very little reflec- 

 tion may suffice to convince any one that it cannot 

 be otherwise. The whole, however extensive it may 

 be, must partake of the general characters of the 

 parts of which it is made up. Now there is no indi- 

 vidual production of nature which is not in a state of 



