294 HISTORY OF 



the noose. In this, both struggling for some 

 time, fall together to the ground; and, at last, 

 the hunter coming up, disengages the one, and 

 kills the other. Upon the whole, however, these 

 animals, whatever be the arts used to pursue them, 

 are very difficult to be taken. As they are con- 

 tinually subject to alarms from carnivorous beasts, 

 or from man, they keep chiefly in the most solitary 

 and inaccessible places, and find their only pro- 

 tection from situations of the greatest danger. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE MUSK ANIMAL. 



THE more we search into nature, the more we 

 shall find how little she is known : and we shall 

 more than once have occasion to find, that pro- 

 tracted inquiry is more apt to teach us modesty 

 than to produce information. Although the num- 

 ber and nature of quadrupeds, at first glance, 

 seems very little known, yet, when we come to 

 examine closer, we find some with which we are 

 very partially acquainted, and others that are ut- 

 terly unknown. There is scarcely a cabinet of the 

 curious but what has the spoils of animals, or the 

 horns or the hoofs of quadrupeds, which do not 

 come within former descriptions. There is scarce- 

 ly a person whose trade is to dress or improve furs, 

 but knows several creatures by their skins, which 



