24 ZOOLOGY OF INDIA. 



docs and cats. Among carnivorous quadrupeds there are 

 many gradations of ferocity, from the bloodthirsty tiger, 

 which so greatly rejoices over the palpitating flesh of a 

 livino- victim, to the more omnivorous propensities which dis- 

 tinguish the subjects of our present paragraph. This ver- 

 satility of instinctive habit is no doubt closely connected 

 with, if it does not proceed from, a less determinate forma- 

 tion of the digestive and prehensile organs, such as the 

 stomach, teeth, and claws. The unequalled strength and 

 rapacity of the tiger, — his sharp retractile talons, — the great 

 development of his canine teeth, and the compressed and 

 cutting character of the molars, combined with the simpli- 

 city of the stomach and the shortness of the intestinal 

 canal, render it, as it were, the type of carnivorous animals. 

 It exhibits no tendency in any of its forms to the herbivorous 

 structure, but is strictly and characteristically a flesh-eating 

 animal, — " a most beautiful and cruel beast of prey." The 

 contour and physiognomy of the bears are very different. 

 Heavy and inactive in their forms, with unretractile claws, 

 more elongated muzzles, and consequently weaker jaws, their 

 teeth also, though sufficiently formidable, show a decided re- 

 lation to the herbivorous structure in the breadth of the 

 molars, and their bluntly tuberculated crowns. " One of 

 those phenomena," observes the editor of the English 

 translation of the Res"ne Animal, " which is most worthy 

 the attention of the naturalist, and most calculated to lead 

 us to appreciate the infinite power of the Creator, consists 

 in the insensible and gradual changes which the same organ 

 will pass, by which its nature will in some measure be trans- 

 formed, and results produced entirely different from those 

 which constituted the object of its original destination. 

 The organs of sense and motion ofl'er frequent examples of 

 this phenomenon ; and the teeth of certain animals present 

 a remarkable instance of the same. The true Camivora, the 

 cats for instance, have in each jaw teeth evidently destined 

 by their form and position to cut, like the two blades of a 

 scissors, the fibres of the muscles of their prey. But in pro- 

 portion as the destination of an animal is more decidedly 

 carnivorous, the teeth lose their trenchant character, and 

 grow thicker, and thus we at last arrive at a limit where they 

 can no. longer be distinguished from the tuberculous teeth, 

 whose office simply consists in triturating the food. These 



