300 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



object of all scientific research. They pass their lives in the 

 mere arrangement of facts, from which they draw no con- 

 clusion, and deduce no theory. But this waste of time, and 

 abuse of knowledge, not unfrequently carries with it its own 

 punishment. Such men grow dissatisfied with their ar- 

 rangements, and make new ones, which are productive of 

 nothing but fresh dissatisfaction. It is not wonderful, if 

 they at last abandon science with disgust, and discover that 

 like other sublunary objects, it is " all vanity and vexation 

 of spirit." 



We shall forbear therefore, as we have hitherto done, to 

 trouble our readers, beyond referring them to the tables ap- 

 pended, with the very minute distinctions insisted on by 

 some writers, or to enter into the very circumstantial details 

 of description, which they deem of such importance, but 

 which are often tiresome by their particularity, and imper- 

 tinent from their tautology. It will suffice to notice a few 

 points of interest respecting some of the American species 

 enumerated by our author, and to present our readers with 

 a brief account of such as he has omitted. This we shall 

 do in this, the essay department of our work, without any 

 very precise attention to systematic order. 



Though the animals of the American continent, differ in 

 many material points from those of the old world, yet is 

 there almost always, a general analogy between them, an 

 analogy sometimes also observable even between the minor 

 subdivisions. We might be justified for example in calling 

 the Alouattes or howling monkeys, the baboons of the new 

 world. They approximate to them in size and fierceness, 

 and are perhaps, still less susceptible of culture, and still 

 less amenable to the discipline of man. They are in truth 

 distinguished for wildness and ferocity, and the bony struc- 

 ture in their throats, which gives to the voice such tremen- 

 dous force and volume, adds in no small degree to the 

 terror which they are otherwise calculated to inspire. 



