11 



those of all the other continents of the earth. Every part 

 of the ocean, every lake and river, and every species of 

 plant on the earth, has its particular animated inhabitants. 

 The trees of the forest may be distinguished by the insects 

 that inhabit them, as animals are known by their parasitic 

 worms and epizoaria. From the Mole, the Beaver, the 

 Rabbit, the Paca, that burrow in the earth, or the worms 

 and insects that people its dunnest caverns, to the Chamois, 

 the Deer, the Buctin, that bound along the snow-clad 

 summits of the mountains from the Zoophytes and Radi- 

 ated Animals that line the deepest submarine caves, or the 

 lithophagous tribes that dig their habitation in the rocks 

 at the bottom of the sea, to the Eagles that soar above 

 the clouds from the Walrus, the Seal, the Bear, that 

 people the dreary regions of the frigid Zone, or the gigan- 

 tic Cetacea that gambol beneath the ices of the Poles, to 

 the ferocious Feline tribes that range the sandy deserts of 

 the burning Zone the Animal Kingdom is distributed over 

 every portion of this planet. Every element, and every situ- 

 ation where life could exist, is crowded with animated be- 

 ings, which, like ourselves, have their feelings, their wants, 

 and their enjoyments. 



In this vast host of living beings, which all start into 

 existence, vanish, and are renewed, in swift succession, 

 like the shadows of the clouds in a summer's day, each 

 species has its peculiar form, structure, properties, and 

 habits, adapted to its situation, which serve to distin- 

 guish it from every other species ; and each individual has 

 its destined purpose in the economy of nature. Indivi- 

 duals appear and disappear in rapid succession upon the 

 earth, and entire species of animals have their limited du- 

 ration, which is but a moment, compared with the antiquity 

 of the globe. Numberless species, and even entire genera 

 and tribes of animals, the links which once connected the 

 existing races, have long since begun and finished their 

 career, and their former existence can now only be recog- 

 nized by their skeletons, embalmed in the soft superficial 



