164 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



sents in front a small ^protuberance, and a forked point be- 

 hind. The molar teeth of the two jaws are opposed crown 

 to crown, so that the anterior part of those below corre- 

 spond to the vacuum above, and the posterior part of these 

 last to the vacuum below. We are not satisfactorily ac- 

 quainted with more than two species, of the first of which, 

 the Erinaceus Europaeus, we shall now speak. 



There are some animals, and among others the Hedge- 

 hog, which manifest in an eminent degree the care and 

 attention bestowed by nature on the preservation of living 

 beings. In the majority, indeed, of mammiferous animals, 

 the continuance of their existence appears mainly to depend 

 upon that kind of equilibrium in the animal world, which 

 properly constitutes the economy of nature, and not so much 

 on any direct means afforded them for that purpose, or any 

 express provision for their security and preservation. 

 Those which attack, those which defend themselves, those 

 which pursue, those which fly, and those which have re- 

 course to concealment for refuge, are reduced in each coun- 

 try from their reciprocal relations to a number pretty nearly 

 fixed, and which cannot alter with respect to one division 

 without some consequent and corresponding alteration 

 with respect to another. Thus, for example, if any for- 

 tuitous circumstances should conduce among us to the mul- 

 tiplication of the mammiferous Carnassiers, the natural 

 consequence would be that the species on which they sub- 

 sisted must become the victims of this unusual increase, or 

 they must themselves perish from misery and hunger. It 

 would be impossible for either, by their own peculiar ac- 

 tivity, or any internal resources, to resist the imperious 

 control of circumstances in such a case. The state to 

 which they would be reduced would be the inevitable ope- 

 ration of a law founded on unalterable conditions, and in- 

 volving within itself the truth of evidence and certainty of 

 result which belong to mathematics. 



