THE ARCHIPELAGO OF BREHAT. 99 



been realised. The perfect animal, if it could exist 

 on the earth, should combine within itself the rarest 

 qualities which are now disseminated over a great 

 number of different species. It should move with 

 the sure-footedness and velocity of the Dziggeta, 

 that wild species of the genus horse which, according 

 to the traditions of the Mongols, serves as the steed 

 of the god of fire ; it should pass through the air 

 with the rapidity of the swift, and sustain its flight 

 like the frigate bird, which is met with six hundred 

 miles from land, and which can therefore traverse a 

 space of more than twelve hundred miles without for 

 an instant stopping the play of its wings, the length 

 of which precludes the possibility of its pausing to 

 rest on the surface of the waves. This perfect 

 animal should be able to plunge to the depths of 

 the sea, and cleave the tempestuous waves with 

 the rapidity of the dolphin and the persistence 

 of the shark, which follows in the wake of a vessel 

 from America to Europe, and thus, without pausing, 

 accomplishes a voyage of some three thousand miles, 

 whose extent may be said to be tripled or quadrupled 

 by the thousand detours which intervene along the 

 route. To these faculties, which appertain to the 

 province of locomotion, he should join the strength 

 of the elephant or whale, and the unerring scent of 

 the hound, the delicate touch of the bat, the acute 

 hearing of the mole, and the piercing sight of the con- 

 dor, which, soaring above the Cordilleras, detects the 

 smallest prey browsing in the plain more than four 

 thousand yards below him. He should combine, for 

 means of attack and defence, the formidable claws 



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