OF NATURAL HISTORY. 6"f 



nicil food is more eafily reduced to chyle, and becomes fooner 

 putrid, than vegetable. Of courfe, if its juices were allow- 

 ed to remain long in the inteftines, inftead of nourifhing the 

 body, they would produce the moft fatal diftempers. Be- 

 iide this accommodation of the inteftines to the nature of their 

 food, carnivorous animals are furnifhed with the neceflary 

 inftruments for feizing and devouring their prey. Their 

 heads are roundifli, their jaws ftrong, and their tulles very 

 long and iliarp. Some of them, as the lion, the tyger, and 

 the whole cat-kind, are provided with long retractile claws. 

 Thus both the internal and external ftrudlure of this clafs of 

 animals indicate their deftination and manners. The rapid 

 dlgeftion of their food is a confequence of the ftrength and 

 fliortnefs of their inteftines ; and the intolerable cravings of 

 their appetite neceffarily create a fiercenefs and rapacity of 

 difpolltion. Nothing lefs than blood can fatiate them. Their 

 cruelty, and the devaftation they make among the v/eaker 

 and more timid tribes, are efFedts refulting folely from the 

 ftrudlure and organs with which Nature has thought proper 

 to endow them. Hence, if there be any thing reprehenfible 

 in the manners and difpofttions of carnivorous animals. Na- 

 ture alone is to blame ; for all their actions are determined 

 by the irrefiftible impulfes of their organization. But, even 

 in this feeraingly cruel arrangement, Nature muft not be ralli- 

 ly accufed. Y/lien we come to treat of the hoftihties of animals, 

 I hope tobeable to fh*ow, thatNature, in the formation of rapa- 

 cious creatures, has adled with her ufual wifdom, and that 

 beings of this kind have their ufes in the general fyftem and 

 oeconomy of the univerfe. 



As to the herbivorous tribes, or thofe animals which feed upon 

 grain and herbage, a flight variation of organs produces the 

 greateft effedts upon their difpofltion and manners. The in- 

 teftines of this tribe are very long, capacious, and convoluted. 

 Vegetable food, efpecially herbage, contains a fmaller quan- 



