ABUNDANCE OF LIFE. 273 



inclement regions, and wliere so little vegeta- 

 tion exists as in the Arctic zone, there must 

 only be very few living animals, and those few 

 of a dwarfish and miserable nature ; but, on 

 the contrary, no portion of the surface of the 

 globe more abounds in animal life, from the 

 minute animalculse — which, although too small 

 to be seen in detail without a microscope, are 

 yet in the aggregate so numberless as to dis- 

 colour the ocean — to the huge walrus and the 

 vast mysticetus with his congeners. All this 

 life hangs together from link to link in a 

 beautiful chain : thus the different animalculse 

 prey on one another; the shrimps and small 

 fishes prey on the larger animalculse ; the seals 

 and walruses and the numerous sea-fowl prey 

 on the shrimps and the fishes ; the bear preys 

 on the seal and the walrus, and the fox on the 

 sea-fowl. 



The Polar bear seems to me to be nothing 

 more than a variety of the bears inhabiting 

 Northern Europe, Asia, and America ; and it 

 surely requires no very great stretch of imagi- 

 nation to suppose that this variety was origi- 

 nally created, not as we see him now, but by 

 individuals of Vrsus arctos in Siberia, who, 

 finding their means of subsistence running 



T 



