HISTORY OF 



CHAPTER XIV. 



OF RUMINATING ANIMALS. 



OF all animals, those that chew the cud are the 

 most harmless, and the most easily tamed. As 

 they live entirely upon vegetables, it is neither 

 their interest nor their pleasure to make war upon 

 the rest of the brute creation : content with the 

 pastures where they are placed, they seldom de- 

 sire to change, while they are furnished with a 

 proper supply j and fearing nothing from each 

 other, they generally go in herds for their mutual 

 security. All the fiercest of the carnivorous kinds 

 seek their food in gloomy solitude ; these, on the 

 contrary, range together ; the very meanest of 

 them are found to unite in each other's defence ; 

 and the haye itself is a gregarious animal in those 

 countries where it has no other enemies but the 

 beasts of the forest to guard against. 



As the food of ruminant animals is entirely of 

 the vegetable kind, and as this is very easily pro- 

 cured, so these animals seem naturally more indo- 

 lent and less artful than those of the carnivorous 

 kinds ; and as their appetites are more simple, 

 their instincts seem to be less capable of variation. 

 The fox or the wolf are for ever prowling ; their 

 long habits of want give them a degree of sharp- 

 ness and cunning ; their life is a continued scene 

 of stratagem and escape : but the patient ox, or 

 the deer, enjoy the repast that nature has abun- 



