206 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



proscribe and utterly annihilate the race, while others 

 would rather promote their increase. If she destroys the 

 roots and seeds which are the care of man, she destroys 

 worms, and insects, and noxious weeds, which are alike 

 inimical to his industry ; even the heaps of earth she 

 raises on the surface, when spread, become serviceable as 

 manure, particularly to meadow-land. However detrimental, 

 therefore, these animals may be, especially to gardens, it 

 is difficult, where they are not at least locally excessive 

 in number, to ascertain the balance of mischief they may 

 do when they have been credited for their beneficial offices. 



It is justly observed, that to annihilate a species is an 

 usurpation, and an abuse of the power of man, and which 

 would, we cannot doubt, be detrimental to his interests in 

 the end, were he to succeed in his exterminating projects. 

 Nothing surely is made in vain, and to destroy the balance 

 of nature in the immensity of her work is to violate her 

 laws, and consequently to lead to confusion and mischief. 

 To a certain extent it may be the duty of man, as the agent 

 of Omnipotence, to limit the undue multiplication of some 

 species, but not to annihilate any. Such undue multipli- 

 cation indeed, in a great measure, is provided for without 

 his interference ; and species, noxious in certain particulars, 

 are generally the means of checking the increase of others 

 equally or still more extensively mischievous. 



The Tenrecs, or Madagascar Hedgehogs, have four 

 upper incisors bent, and six trenchant and lobed laterally 

 in the lower jaw, a canine tooth on each side, and six cheek- 

 teeth in each jaw. The first of these is a compressed iso- 

 lated false molar, but the five following are genuine insecti- 

 vorous teeth. Their body is covered with spines like those 

 of the Hedgehog ; the head is elongated, the muzzle ex- 

 cessively pointed, the eyes moderately large, the ears short 

 and round, and they have no tail. 



The anatomical characters of the Tenrecs approximate 



