ON ZOOLOGY. 141 



the property and persons of individuals within 

 their reach ; yet even these are made subser- 

 vient to human purposes, since they call forth 

 the energies and ingenuity of man for their des- 

 truction ; their skins, or some portion of their 

 bodies, are often the subject of commercial 

 transactions ; and they are the direct means of 

 keeping within due bounds a vast variety of the 

 smaller animals, whose depredations in general, 

 are more destructive and vexatious than even the 

 encroachments of their own species, whose at- 

 tacks are usually so much the cause of our 

 apprehension. 



Thus it appears, that the quadruped animals (to 

 which we now more particularly allude,) have in 

 most instances a reference to the wants, conve 

 niences, and occupations of man that they re- 

 semble him in many of their attributes, and in 

 most of their physical properties and that with- 

 out their presence and aid, he would have been 

 rendered nearly as useless and as helpless as on 

 the day which first gave him birth. 



We come now to a subject, no less interesting; 

 the provision which nature has made for the ani- 

 mals thus devoted, so as to secure to them also a 

 due share of protection and enjoyment, consist- 

 ently with the sphere in which they are destined 

 to move. 



Although we may justly presume, that the great 

 object of the creation in all its several parts, had 



