34 MAMMIPEROUS ANIMALS. 



rent parts of the body ; and it is their action which 

 gives to all animals the power of changing their 

 place, and performing the various movements ne- 

 cessary to their wa.ts. 



The sensation of animals arises from an irritation 

 taking place on the ends of certain cords called 

 nerves. These are either prolonged from the spinal 

 marrow^ or they are united in pairs in the brain. 



According to the destination of Nature, the Mam- 

 mi ferous Animals are calculated, when full grown, 

 to subsist upon food of various kinds ; some to live 

 wholly upon flesh, others upon grain, herbs, or 

 fruits of different kinds ; but in their infant state, 

 milk is the food appropriated to the whole. And 

 that this food may never fail to them, it is universally 

 ordained, that the young is no sooner born than milk 

 flows in abundance into the members provided in 

 the mother for the secretion of tliat nutritious fluid. 

 The infant animal searches for the teat almost as soon 

 as it comes into life, and knows perfectly at the first 

 how by suction to extract the fluid that preserves its 

 existence. 



In the general economy of Nature it is one great 

 business of this class of anim.als to keep up a constant 

 equilibrium in the number of animated beings of 

 the world. To man tliey are immediately useful in 

 various ways ; they aflxard him their bodies for food, 

 and their fleece to shelter him from cold. Some of 

 them partake with him the dangers of combat with 

 his enemies ; and others pursue and obtain for hin> 



