SECT. XXVI. DIFFERENT TRIBES OF MANKIND. 255 



with decrease of temperature. The dispersion of insects neces- 

 sarily follows that of the vegetables which supply their food ; 

 and in general it is observed that each kind of plant is peopled 

 by its peculiar inhabitants. Each species of bird has its peculiar 

 haunt, notwithstanding the locomotive powers of the winged 

 tribes. The emu is confined to Australia, the condor to the 

 Andes and their declivities, and the bearded vulture or lemmer- 

 geyer to the Alps. Some birds, like the common sparrow, have 

 a wide range ; but those met with in every country are few 

 in number. Quadrupeds are distributed in the same manner 

 wherever man has not interfered. Such as are indigenous in one 

 country are not the same with their congeners in another ; and, 

 with the exception of some kind of bats, no mammiferous animal 

 is indigenous in the Polynesian Archipelago, nor in any of the 

 islands on the borders of the central part of the Pacific. 



In reviewing the infinite variety of organised beings that 

 people the surface of the globe, nothing is more remarkable than 

 the distinctions which characterise the different tribes of man- 

 kind, from the ebony skin of the torrid zone to the fair and 

 ruddy complexion of the Scandinavian a difference which 

 existed in the earliest recorded times, since the African is repre- 

 sented in the sacred writings to have been as black as he is at 

 the present day, and the most ancient Egyptian paintings con- 

 firm that truth ; yet it appears, from a comparison of the prin- 

 cipal circumstances relating to the animal economy or physical 

 character of the various tribes of mankind, that the different 

 races are identical in species. Many attempts have been made 

 to trace the various tribes back to a common origin, by collating 

 the numerous languages which are or have been spoken. Some 

 classes of these have few or no words in common, yet exhibit a 

 remarkable analogy in the laws of their grammatical construc- 

 tion. The languages spoken by the native American nations 

 afford examples of these ; indeed, the refinement in the gram- 

 matical construction of the tongues of the American savages 

 leads to the belief that they must originally have been spoken 

 by a much more civilised class of mankind. Some tongues have 

 little or no resemblance in structure, though they correspond 

 extensively in their vocabularies, as the Syrian dialects. In all 

 these cases it may be inferred that the nations speaking the Ian- 



