126 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. V. 



all the preceding modes of locomotion gradually dis- 

 appear : these latter animals have merely the power 

 of moving in a serpentine manner, something like earth- 

 worms, but with this difference, that, as their body 

 is not capable of the same contraction, it always remains 

 of undiminished length. 



CHAP. V. 



ON THE MEANS OP DEFENCE POSSESSED BY THE 

 ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



(150.) IN no part of the economy of the animal world 

 is the protecting care of the Almighty Creator more 

 apparent, than in the means he has given to his crea- 

 tures for self-preservation. Nor is the exertion of these 

 means less extraordinary than their infinite variety. 

 So far as is necessary for the support of life, the pro- 

 pagation of its kind, and the right employment of those 

 defences with which it has been endowed, the instinct 

 of every animated being is as perfect as if it was gifted 

 with the reasoning powers of man. It would not, in- 

 deed, be difficult to cite rare and isolated exceptions to 

 this axiom ; for when we see that man himself is per- 

 petually doing violence to his own reason, committing 

 acts of folly, if not of crime, which his better judg- 

 ment, his internal monitor, tells him to be wrong, 

 we cannot expect that the animal creation is not to 

 share in this mutability ; or that it did not participate 

 in that universal degradation which sin brought into the 

 world. Both, as corning from the centre of perfection, 

 must have originally been perfect ; for He, who is per- 

 fection, cannot be the author of imperfection : of this, 

 both reason and revelation abundantly assure us. God 

 saw his work, " and, behold, it was very good." 



