Fox's Earth to Mountain Tarn 



enough, but not quite in balance. We give our 

 names at haphazard, or without reference to other 

 names. We might as well call the cats clawed 

 animals. The cats and the cattle excuse the 

 slight alliteration if not something worse run in 

 couples, and should be named along the same 

 lines. There is a history and brief chronicle in 

 well-chosen names where one leads on to an- 

 other. If we called them grass-eaters quite a 

 world of obscurity would be cleared up. 



For we straightway come upon the flesh-eaters. 

 Indeed the two were twin-born from the same 

 generalized form. There is a natural fitness in 

 the arrangement, a sequence which we should 

 most assuredly observe. In two groups thus 

 linked, to call one by the teeth and the other by 

 the hoofs is the act of blunderers. The first 

 group eat grass, and so make flesh, therefore 

 graminivores ; the second group eat the flesh thus 

 made, so carnivores. 



No other two forms have a like significance. 

 No others are so linked in bonds that are in- 

 dissoluble. These were the two great pro- 

 tagonists. Like other twins, they straightway 

 fell out. There is a sense in which ungulate is 

 not unfitting. Ingenuity can always find a 

 meaning in the blunders of the name -givers, 

 even when it is not the most obvious one. It 

 was a trial of speed against strength ; of hoof 

 with teeth. The tragedy of the world began 



57 



