ANIMALS. 401 



Oil one quarter we see a tribe covered with quills, or furnished 

 with wings, that lift them among the inhabitants of the air ; on 

 another, we behold a diversity clothed with scales and shells, to 

 rank with insects ; and still on a third, we see them descending 



strikingly combined. But of all their organs there is perhaps none which 

 exhibits so rerajirkable a discrepancy in every particular as the tail ; which 

 is entirely wanting in some, forms a mere tubercle in others, in a third 

 group is short and tapering, in a fourth of moderate length and cylindri- 

 cal, in a fifth extremely long, but uniformly covered with hair ; in others, 

 again, of equal length, divested of hair beneath and near the tip, and cap. 

 able of being twisted round the branch of a tree or any other similar sub- 

 stance in such a marmer as to support the whole weight of the animal, even 

 without the assistance of his hands. 



In none of them, it may be observed, are the hands formed for swimming, 

 or the nails constructed for digging the earth ; and in none of them is the 

 naked callous portion, which corresponds to the sole or the palm, capable of 

 being applied, like the feet of man or of the bear, to the flat sui-faces on 

 which they may occasionally tread. Even in those which have the greatest 

 propensity to assume an upright posture, the body is, under such circum- 

 stances, wholly supported by the outer margins of the posterior hands. The 

 earth, in fact, is not their proper place of abode ; they are essentially in- 

 habitants of trees, and every part of their organization is admirably fitted 

 for the mode of life to which they were destined by the hand of nature her. 

 self. Throughout the vast forests of Asia, Africa, and South America, and 

 more especially in those portions of the three continents wliich are com 

 prehcnded within the tropics, they congregate in nimicrous troops, bound, 

 ing rapidly from branch to branch, and from tree to tree, in search of the 

 fruits and eggs which constitute their principal means of subsistence. In 

 the course of these peregrinations, wliich are frequently executed with a 

 velocity scarcely to be followed by the eye, they seem to give a momentary, 

 and but a momentary, attention to every remarkable object that falls 

 in their way, but never appear to remember it again ; for they will exa. 

 mine the same object with the same rapidity as often as it recurs, and ap. 

 pai'ently without in the least recognizing it as that which they had seen be- 

 fore. They pass on a sudden from a state of seeming tranquillity to the 

 most violent demonstrations of passion and sensuality ; and in the course of 

 a few minutes run through all the various phases of gesture and action of 

 wliich they are capable, and for which their peculiar conformation afforda 

 ample scope. The females ti-eat their young with the greatest tenderness 

 until tlicy become capable of shifting for themselves ; when they turn them 

 loose upon the world, and conduct themselves towards them from that 

 time forwards in the same maimer as towards the most perfect strangers. 



The degre(>s of their so much vaunted intelligence, which is in general 

 rery limited, and raiely capable of being made subservient to the purposes 

 of man, vary almost as much as the ever-changing outline of their form. 

 From the grave and reflecti\'e oran-otang, whose docility and powers of 

 imitation in his young state have been the theme of so much ridiculous ex- 

 aggeration and sophistical argumentation, to the stupid and savage baboon, 

 whose gross brutality is scarcely relieved by a single spark of iutelligence, 



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