ORDER RODENTIA. 211 



ing directly forward, they rather rely on their hearing, the 

 organ of which is very perfect, to warn them of approach- 

 ing danger. Perfectly defenceless, indeed, and exposed to 

 countless enemies, they have no chance of safety but in the 

 expedition of their flight, and unless forewarned by the 

 acuteness of one or more of their senses of the approach of 

 an enemy, they would invariably fall the victims of surprise. 

 Their Creator, while he has left them a prey to so many 

 other animals, has provided them with one mode of self- 

 defence in a rapid locomotion, rendered more efficacious by 

 a quick susceptibility of danger. Lively timidity, however, 

 must be attended with pain ; and if there be any disparity 

 in the distribution of good and evil to inferior creation, 

 all, except sportsmen, must pity creatures which exist con- 

 stantly under the excitement of acute fear. 



Ordinary conclusions, drawn by analogy, are frequently 

 erroneous when any of the great objects of Providence are 

 the subjects of our contemplation ; this seems exemplified 

 in the providential preservation of the several races of ani- 

 mals. The doctrine of the special interposition of Provi- 

 dence, at least in ethics, is beside our subject; but the ex- 

 istence of beings around us, whose speedy extermination 

 would seem the ordinary consequence of their situations 

 and relationships with other creatures, evinces an extraor- 

 dinary suspension of common consequences in physics in 

 a very forcible manner. 



The heart is said to be larger, relatively to the other parts, 

 in these than in most other animals, and it has been no- 

 ticed, that Pliny observed generally, that all animals of a 

 fearful disposition have the heart of considerable size. 



The several species of the genus Lepus, or the Hares, 

 properly speaking, exhibit a very close approximation to a 

 common type. In noticing the common Hare, therefore, we 

 shall state several particulars equally applicable to all the 



