284 A HISTORY OF 



brougnt home from the pole or the equator, have proved inef- 

 fectual. They are gentle and harmless enough while young ; but as 

 they grow up, they acquire their natural ferocity, and snap at the 

 hand that feeds them. It may indeed, in general, be asserted, that in 

 all countries where the men are most barbarous, the beasts are most 

 fierce and cruel : and this is but a natural consequence of the struggle 

 between man and the more savage animals of the forest ; for in pro- 

 portion as he is weak and timid, they must be bold and intrusive; in 

 proportion as his dominion is but feebly supported, their rapacity must 

 be more obnoxious. In the extensive countries, therefore, lying round 

 the pole, or beneath the line, the quadrupeds are fierce and formidable. 

 Africa has ever been remarked for the brutality of its men, and the 

 fierceness of its animals : its lions and its leopards are not less terrible 

 than its crocodiles and its serpents ; their dispositions seem entirely 

 marked with the rigours of the climate, and being bred in an extreme 

 of heat, they show a peculiar ferocity, that neither the force of man 

 can conquer, nor his arts allay. However, it is happy for the wretched 

 inhabitants of those climates, that its most formidable animals are all 

 solitary ones ; that they have not learnt the art of uniting, to oppress 

 mankind ; but each depending on its own strength, invades without 

 any assistant. 



The food also is another cause in the variety, which we find among 

 quadrupeds of the same kind. Thus the beasts which feed in the val- 

 ley are generally larger than those which glean a scanty subsistence 

 on the mountain. Such as live in the warm climates, where the plants 

 are much larger and more succulent than with us, are equally remark- 

 able for their bulk. The ox fed in the plains of Indostan, is much 

 larger than that which is more hardly maintained on the side of the 

 Alps. The deserts of Africa, where the plants are extremly nourish- 

 ing, produce the largest and fiercest animals ; and, perhaps for a con- 

 trary reason, America is found not to produce such large animals as 

 aje seen in the ancient continent. But, whatever be the reason, the 

 fact is certain, that while America exceeds us in the size of its reptiles 

 of all kinds, it is far inferior in its quadruped productions. Thus, for 

 instance, the largest animal of that country is the tapir, which can by 

 no means be compared to the elephant of Africa. Its beasts of prey 

 also, are devested of that strength and courage which is so dangerous 

 in this part of the world. The American lion, tiger, and leopard, if 

 such diminutive creatures deserve these names, are neither so fierce 

 nor so valiant as those of Africa and Asia. The tiger of Bengal has 

 been seen to measure twelve feet in length, without including the tail ; 

 tvhereas the American tiger seldom exceeds three. This difference 

 obtains still more in the other animals of that country, so that some 

 have been of opinion* that all the quadrupeds in Southern America 

 are of a different species from those most resembling them in the old 

 world ; and that there are none which are common to both but such 

 as have entered Ameiica by the north ; and which, being able to bear 

 the rigours of the frozen pole, have travelled from the ancient conti- 

 nent, by that passage, into the new. Thus the bear, the wolf, the elk, 



Buffoa 



