27<J HCSTOaY OF 



in the West- Indies, called caraguata, clings round whatever tree 

 it happens to approach : there it quickly gains the ascendant ; 

 and loading the tree with a verdure not its own, keeps away that 

 nourislnnent designed to feed the trunk ; and, at last, entirely 

 destroys its supporter. As all animals are ultimately supported 

 upon vegetables, so vegetables are greatly propagated by being 

 made a part of animal food. Birds distribute the seeds wherever 

 they fly, and quadrupeds prune them into great luxuriance. By 

 these means the quantity of food, in a state of nature, is kept 

 equal to the number of the consumers ; and, lest some of the 

 weaker ranks of animals should find nothing for their support, 

 but all the provisions be devoured by the strong, different vege- 

 tables are appropriated to different appetites. If, transgressing 

 this rule, the stronger rank should invade the rights of the weak, 

 and, breaking through all regard to appetite, should make an 

 indiscriminate use of every vegetable, nature then punishes the 

 transgression, and poison marks the crime as capital. 



If, again, we compare vegetables and animals, with respect to 

 the places where they are found, we shall find them bearing a 

 still stronger similitude. The vegetables that grow in a dry and 

 sunny soil, are strong and vigorous, though not luxuriant ; so also 

 are the animals of such a climate. Those, on the contrary, that 

 are the joint product of heat and moisture, are luxuriant and 

 tender ; and the animals assimilating to the vegetable food, on 

 which they ultimately subsist, are much larger in such places 

 than in others. Thus, in the internal parts of South America 

 and Africa, where the sun usually scorches all above, while in- 

 undations cover all below, the insects, reptiles, and other ani- 

 mals, grow to a prodigious size : the earth-worm of America is 

 often a yard in length, and as thick as a walking cane ; the boi- 

 guacu, which is the largest of the serpent kind, is sometimes 

 forty feet in length -, the bats in those countries, are as big as a 

 rabbit ; the toads are bigger than a duck ; and their spiders are 

 as large as a sparrow. On the coTitrary, in the cold frozen re- 

 gions of the north, where vegetable nature is stinted of its 

 growth, the few animals in those climates partake of the dimi- 

 nution ; all the wild animals, except the bear, are much smaller 

 than in milder countries ; and such of the domestic kinds as are 

 carried thither, quickly degenerate, and grow less. Their very 



