53 



anatomists have conjectured, and the Indians affirm, 

 his early retirement maybe accounted for from the ge- 

 neral destruction of the wild game by the Indians, 

 which commences in the first instant of their connex- 

 ion with us, for the purpose of purchasing match coats, 

 hatchets, and firelocks with their skins. There remain 

 then the buffaloe, red deer, fallow deer, wolf, roe, 

 glutton, wild cat, monax, vison, hedgehog, marten, and 

 water rat, of the comparative sizes of which we have 

 not sufficient testimony. It does not appear that 

 Messrs. de BufFon and L'Aubenton have measured, 

 weighed, or seen those of America. It is said of some 

 of them, by some travellers, that they are smaller than 

 the European. But who were these travellers ? Have 

 they not been men of a very different description from 

 those who have laid open to us the other three quar- 

 ters of the world ? Was natural history the object of 

 their travels ? Did they measure or weigh the animals 

 they speak of? or did they not judge of them by sight, 

 or perhaps even from report only ? Were they ac- 

 quainted with the animals of their own country, with 

 which they undertake to compare them ? Have they 

 not been so ignorant as often to mistake the species ? 

 A true answer to these questions would probably light- 

 en their authority, so as to render it insufficient for the 

 foundation of an hypothesis. How unripe we yet are, 

 for an accurate comparison of the animals of the two 

 countries, will appear from the work of Monsieur de 

 Buffian. The ideas we should have formed of the sizes 

 of some animals, from the information he had received 

 at his first publications concerning them are very dif- 

 ferent from what his subsequent communications give 

 us. And indeed his candour in this can never be too 

 much praised. One sentence of his book must do him 

 immortal honour. 'J'aime autante une personne qui 

 me releve d'une erreur, qu'une autre qui m'apprend 

 une verit6, parce qu'en effect une erreur corrig^e est 

 une verit^.'* He seems to have thought the cabiai he 



* Quad. IX. 158. 

 5* 



