ANIMALS. 44j 



Wise ill tliose subjects where the exhibilioii of the object itself is 

 Hlways capable of correcting tlie error. Thus it may often hap- 

 pen, that in a lax system of natural history, a creature may be 

 ranked among quadrupeds that belongs more properly to the fish 

 or the insect classes. Eut that can produce very little confusion, 

 and every reader can thus make a system the most agreeable to his 

 own imagination. It will be of no manner of consequence whe- 

 ther we call a bird or insect a quadruped, if we are careful \p 

 marking all its distinctions ; the uncertainty in reasoning, or think- 

 ing, that these approximations of the different kinds of animals 

 produce, is but very small, and liappens but very rarely ; where- 

 as the labour that naturalists have been at to keep the kinds 

 asunder, has been excessive. This, in general, has given birth 

 to that variety of systems which we have just mentioned, each 

 of which seems to be almost as good as the preceding. 



Taking, therefore, this latitude, and using method only where 

 it contributes to conciseness or perspicuity, we shall divide ani- 

 mated nature into four classes ; namely, Quadrupeds, Eirds, 

 Fishes, and Insects. All these seem in general pretty well dis- 

 tinguished from each other by nature; yet there are several in- 

 stances in which we can scarcely tell whether it is a bird or a 

 quadruped that we are about to examine ; whether it is a fish or 

 an insect that offers to our curiosity. Nature is varied by im- 

 perceptible gradations, so that no line can be drawn between any 

 two classes of its productions, and no definition made to compre- 

 hend them all. However, the distinctions between these classes 

 are sufRcu^ntly marked, and their encroachments upon each other 

 are so rare, that it will be sufficient particularly to apprise the 

 reader wheii they happen to be blended. 



There are many quadrupeds that we are well acquainted with ; 

 and of those we do not know, we shall form the most clear 

 and distinct conceptions, by being told wherein they differ, and 

 wherein they resemble those with which we are familiar. Each 

 class of quadrupeds may be ranged under some one of the do- 

 mestic kinds, that may serve for the model by which we are to 

 form some kind of idea of the rest. Thus we may say that a 

 tiger is of the cat kind, a wolf of the dog kind, because there arc 

 some rude resemblances between each •, and a jieisoii u ho hi-s 

 never seen the wild aniiiials, will have some iniompltte know- 

 ledge ot their litjure from the tame ones. On the contrary, I 



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