﻿OF THE PANGOLIN. 35$ 



fluid, resembling in colour and consistence the dregs 

 of beer. 



The subject was a female : its dugs were two, 

 seated on the breasc. The uterus and organs of ge- 

 neration were evidently those of a viviparous animal. 



Forcibly struck with the phenomena which this 

 quadruped exhibited, my imagination at once over- 

 leaped the boundaries by which science endeavours 

 to circumscribe the production* and the ways of 

 Nature ; and believing with Buffon, que tout ce qui 

 >peut etre est, I did not hesitate to conjecture that this 

 animal might possibly derive its nourishment from 

 mineral substances. This idea I accordingly hazarded 

 in an address to Colonel Kyd. The spirit of inquiry, 

 natural to that gentleman, could be ill satisfied by- 

 ideas thrown out apparently at random ; and he soon 

 called on me to explain my opinion, and its foundation. 



Though we have perhaps no clear idea of the 

 manner in which vegetables extract their nourish- 

 ment from earth, yet the fact being so, it may not 

 be unreasonable to suppose that some animal may 

 derive nutriment by a process somewhat similar. It 

 appears to me, that facts produced by Spallanzani di- 

 rectly invalidate the experiments, from which he has 

 drawn the inference, that fowls swallow stones merely 

 from stupidity ; and that such substances are alto- 

 gether unnecessary to those animals. He reared 

 fowls, without permitting them ever to swallow sand 

 or stones ; but he also established the fact, that car- 

 nivorous animals may become frugivorous j and herbi- 

 vorous animals may come to live on flesh. A wood- 

 pidgeon he brought to thrive on putrid meat. The 

 experiment on fowls, then, only corroborates the proof, 

 that we have it in our power by habits to alter the na- 

 tural constitution of animals. Again the eminent in- 

 vestigator of truth found, that fowls died when fed 



Vol, II, A a 



