170 HISTORY OF 



so that some have been of opinion,* that all quad- 

 rupeds 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 Ame- 

 rica by the north ; and which, being able to bear 

 the rigours of the frozen pole, have travelled from 

 the ancient continent by that passage into the 

 new. Thus the bear, the wolf, the elk, the stag, 

 the fox, and the beaver, are known to the inhabi- 

 tant as well of North America as of Russia ; while 

 most of the various kinds to the southward, in 

 both continents, bear no resemblance to each 

 other. Upon the whole, such as peculiarly be- 

 long to the new continent are without any marks 

 of the quadruped perfection. They are almost 

 wholly destitute of the power of defence ; they 

 have neither formidable teeth, horns, or tail ; their 

 figure is awkward, and their limbs ill proportion- 

 ed. Some among them, such as the ant-bear and 

 the sloth, appear so miserably formed as scarcely 

 to have the power of moving and eating. They, 

 seemingly, drag out a miserable and languid ex- 

 istence in the most desert solitude ; and would 

 quickly have been destroyed in a country where 

 there were inhabitants, or powerful beasts to op- 

 pose them. 



But if the quadrupeds of the new continent be 

 less, they are found in much greater abundance ; 

 for it is a rule that obtains through nature, that 

 the smallest animals multiply the fastest. The 



* Buffbn. 



