46* ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY 



Many things are indeed, at present, inexplicable to us ; 

 thus, we cannot conceive to what purpose the long, slender, 

 and almost circular canine teeth of the upper jaw of the 

 babyroussa are subservient ; and the offices of many parts, 

 even in the human body, are still hidden from us. But the 

 ends, or final purposes, of the Creator will be placed in the 

 strongest light by selecting any animal of marked peculi- 

 arity in its economy, and comparing together its structure 

 and mode of life. Let a person, who knows the natural 

 history of the mole, attentively contemplative its skeleton : 

 if he should still withhold liis belief in final purposes, he 

 would probably coincide in opinion with a celebrated mem- 

 ber of the French Academy of Sciences, who declared that 

 it was as absurb to suppose the eye intended for seeing, as 

 to imagine that stones were created for breaking heads. 



I shall be contented with two other illustrations, which, 

 although different from each other, are analogous in their 

 purpose. The large cavities of birds, and the interior of 

 their bones, are filled with air ; thus they are rendered light 

 and buoyant, capable of raising themselves into the higher 

 regions of the atmosphere, of sustaining themselves with 

 little effort in this rare medium, and of cleaving the skies 

 with wonderful celerity. Humboldt saw the enormous 

 vulture of the Andes, the majestic condor, dart suddenly 

 from the bottom of the deepest vallies to a considerable 

 heiglit above the summit of Chimbora^o, where the ba- 

 rometer must have been lower than ten inches *. He fre- 

 quently observed it soaring at an elevation six times higher 

 than that of the clouds in our atmosphere. This bird, 

 which reaches the measure of fourteen feet f with the wings 

 extended, habitually prefers an elevation at which tlie mer- 

 cury of the barometer sinks to about sixteen inches. 



The mammalia which live entirely or principally in the 



* Recueil d' Observations ds Zoologie et d'Anatomie comparee. Essia 

 surl'Histoire Naturelle du Condor, p. 26, et buiv. pi. S. et 9. 



+ MoLixA, Storia Nalnrale. dr Chili, c-ip. 4. s. 5. This measure is 

 a5signed by Shaw to an individual described and figured by him; Museum 

 Leverianum^ v. I. pi. I. 



