14 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



his very errors, with a blind and superstitious reverence. 

 Cuvier was undoubtedly a great, a very great naturalist ; 

 his writings are to be read with reverence and respect, and 

 if we feel disposed to differ from his theories, the feeling 

 should only be given way to after the most careful examina- 

 tion and research. If facts present an equal balance, let us 

 by all means abandon our own skepticism, and yield to the 

 authority of his master genius ; but if facts decidedly pre- 

 ponderate in favor of our doubt, even his great name must 

 not deter us from taking an independent course, and adopting 

 our own views. Cuvier has shown himself a partaker of 

 human fallibility 



" Indignor si quando bonus dormitat Homerus." 



In the case of the fossil deer of Ireland, for instance, he 

 for a long time almost deprived us of our claim to the ex- 

 clusive possession of that stupendous relic of olden time, by 

 describing remains of what he conceived to be the same 

 animal as having been exhumed in France. These remains 

 have since been recognised as belonging to quite a different 

 tribe of animals ; and in this instance also I cannot but ob- 

 serve, that the very obvious difference subsisting between the 

 osseous remains of the animals in question, is sufficient to in- 

 duce caution towards an author who could thus strangely 

 confound them with each other. It was left to Colonel 

 Hamilton Smith to expose Cuvier's mistake he alone hav- 

 ing the spirit to examine this subject when so great a man 

 had once treated of it, and to remark upon the errors which 

 he found. 



/ To resume, however : so then man boasts of a mysterious 

 control over natural instinct, and that he is able to subdue, 

 reclaim, and conquer for himself what animals he wishes ; 

 and that he further possesses a power of rendering those ani- 

 mals, naturally fierce and estranged from his society, his 

 faithful, willing, and unchangeable servants ! Truly it is a 

 pity that if such a power ever existed, it should be now so 

 utterly lost. I, for one, would be glad, indeed, were it still 

 capable of being exercised. I have spent years in striving 

 to reclaim the wild creatures of the forest ; I have expended 

 upon them my attention and my care ; I have given them 

 much of my time, my affection, and my means ; and yet I 

 have, after all, but succeeded in the partial familiarization of 

 a few individuals, whose offspring have invariably returned 

 to the intractable, ferocious, and feral habits of their race. 



