118 ANIMALS OF THE 



be apprized, that his knowledge will be defective 

 without an examination of each particular species; 

 and that saying an animal is of this or that parti- 

 cular kind, is but a very trifling part of its his- 

 tory. 



Animals of the hare kind, like all others that 

 feed entirely upon vegetables, are inoffensive and 

 timorous. As nature furnishes them with a most 

 abundant supply, they have not that rapacity after 

 food remarkable in such as are often stinted in, 

 their provision. They are extremely active, and 

 amazingly swift, to which they chiefly owe their 

 protection ; for being the prey of every voracious 

 animal, they are incessantly pursued. The hare, 

 the rabbit, and the squirrel, are placed by Pye- 

 rius, in his Treatise of Ruminating Animals, 

 among the number of those that chew the cud ; 

 but how far this may be true, I will not pretend 

 to determine. Certain it is that their lips conti- 

 nually move whether sleeping or waking. Never- 

 theless, they chew their meat very much before 

 they swallow it, and for that reason I should sup- 

 pose that it does not want a second mastication. 

 All these animals use their fore-paws like hands ; 

 they are remarkably salacious, and are furnished 

 by nature with more ample powers than most 

 others for the business of propagation. They are 

 so very prolific, that were they not thinned by 

 the constant depredations made upon them by 

 most other animals, they would quickly overrun 

 the earth. 



