CHAP. IX. ASSOCIATIONS FOR BREEDING. 2?1 



are nocturnal ; while both, without a single known ex- 

 ception, are solitary. 



(284.) But, as all carnivorous creatures are not noc- 

 turnal, so all that are nocturnal are not necessarily car- 

 nivorous. Here, as in other things, extremes meet; 

 for the night seems to be as favourable for the stealthy 

 movements of the feeble, as it is for the depredations 

 of the violent. We pretend not to explain this ; we 

 look merely to facts. Nearly the whole family of mice 

 the most timorous and the most feeble of all quad- 

 rupeds choose the night as their season of activity ; 

 and it is at this time, only, that the poor defenceless 

 earth-worm ventures to rise above the surface of the 

 ground, and draw to the entrance of its hole the fallen 

 leaves of autumn. In Australia, as the late Mr. Lewin 

 informs us, there is a family of moths, which are dis- 

 tinguished, in their caterpillar state, by precisely similar 

 habits. It seems that the great enemies of these cater- 

 pillars are the different species of Mantis and Phasma, 

 better known by the common name of walking-leaf in- 

 sects. To avoid these, which are carnivorous insects, 

 the caterpillars in question remain, during the day, 

 concealed in their cells, where they devour the produce 

 of the preceding night's excursion in ease and security. 

 (285.) Among the carnivorous quadrupeds, typically 

 so termed, we have none which can be called social. 

 Affection for their young, while helpless and incapable 

 of procuring food, belongs to all animals, and is as 

 conspicuous in the female lion and the tiger, as in the 

 ox or sheep ; but the male of the latter is stated, oc- 

 casionally, to devour its own offspring, when not con- 

 cealed by the mother. The hamsters seem to have 

 the social principle less than almost any other quadru- 

 peds. Pennant remarks, that they live in separate 

 burrows ; and that, excepting during their short season 

 of courtship, they have no intercourse with one another; 

 nay, that they will even fight, kill, and devour their 

 own species, as well as other lesser animals. The 

 growth of the young is very quick ; and, at the age of 



