42 



FIRST CLASS OF THE VERTEBRATED ANIMALS. 



both feeble and defenceless, Natui'e has converted the ordinary hair of the other 

 quadrupeds into a forest of pointed darts; and these animals, rolling themselves into a 

 spiny ball on the approach of danger, are invincible to all other species. The herbi- 

 vorous tribes do not possess strong teeth or hooked claws, but many of them have 

 the head armed with powerful horns. The timid Rodentia either seek with instinc- 

 tive industry to hide themselves under ground, like the Mai-mot, the Rabbit, and the 

 Rat, or they leap with agility, Hke the Squirrel, from tree to tree, or else, like the 

 Jerboas and Cape Rat, they avoid their pursuers by wide and frequent springs resem- 

 bling Grasshoppers ; again, the Vicugna and Llama have no means of defence, yet when 

 attacked they dart upon their enemies an acrimonious and disgusting saliva. The 

 Pole-cats and the Mephitis exhale, when pursued, odours so execrable, that they 

 compel their most irritated enemy to desist in his pursuit. Some animals, like the 

 Howling Sapajous (Ateles and Lagothri.vJ, attempt to terrify their enemies by the 

 most frightful howls ; others avoid them by climbing trees, by dai-ting into their sub- 

 terranean retreats, by vaulting, by leaping, by plunging into the water, by distracting 

 their pursuer with a host of ingenious devices and precautions, or by the construction 

 of fortified dens or impenetrable recesses. 



Besides these means of defence, the smaller species are more productive, both in 

 number and frequency, than the larger species; they ai"e also more robust, lively, and 

 active, in proportion. Before an Elephant or a Whale can turn round once, a Mus- 

 cardin or a Mouse will have made a hundred movements. The smallness of their 

 limbs gives more unity and solidity to their bodies. Their shorter muscles contract 

 more easily, and more forcibly, than in these larger and more unwieldy machines. 

 Were an animal to exist three or four hundred feet in length, and of a proportionate 

 thickness, it would lie gasping on the earth overwhelmed with its weight, and would 

 become the easy prey of all other animals, even of the most feeble. 



Thus we find that the Mammalia are fitted in every respect for the stations which 

 they occupy, and that a bountiful Nature provides, by means of their complicated 

 relations, for one continual scene of activity and enjoyment. 



GENERAL REVIEW OF THE MAMMALIA CONTINUEE. 



Their Food — Carnivorous Tribes— Final causes of their Mutual Destruction — 

 J£erbivorous Tribes. 



The surface of the earth, clothed with verdure, is the inexhaustible source whence 

 Man and Animals derive in common their subsistence. Every animated being lives ulti- 

 mately upon vegetables, and vegetables are maintained by the debris or remains of every 

 thing which has lived and vegetated. A perpetual round of existence is thus main- 

 lined. Without Death there could be no Life, and it is only by annihilating other 

 beings that animals are able to support themselves, and to continue their species; 

 they must either feed on vegetables or upon other animals. Yet Nature, hke an 

 indulgent mother, has fixed limits to this apparently indiscriminate destruction. The 

 carnivorous and voracious individuals are reduced to a small number, while she has 

 largely multiplied both the species and individuals which are herbivorous. Man too 

 has greatly assisted in exterminating, or confining within narrow limits, the predace- 

 cus species, and in establishing the more peaceful tribes. Among the Marine genera, 

 although some are herbivorous, yet the greater number are nearly equally voracious. 

 These devour their own and diff'erent species without ever appearing to exterminate 

 each other, because their fecundity is as great as the destruction; and nearly all this 

 mutual consumption acts as a new incentive to reproduction. 



Man stands foremost among the carnivorous tribes. Being the predominant species, 

 he exercises over the other Mammalia the privileges of a master. He has chosen 

 those which please his taste, and forms them into humble dependants. By caus- 

 ing them to multiply more rapidly than unassisted Nature would have done, they 

 have given rise to numerous flocks; and from the care bestowed in their production, 

 he acquires a natural right of immolating them to satisfy his wants. This power, 

 however, extends much farther than his necessities would require; for, independent 

 of those species which he has subdued and can dispose according to his pleasure, he 

 carries on a war of extermination against the wild Beasts, the Birds, and the Fishes. 

 He does not even confine himself to the climate which he inhabits, but seeks for new 

 delicacies in the remoter parts of the globe. Natui-e seems scarcely adequate to 

 supply this continual demand for variety, and Man alone may be said to consume more 

 animal food than all the other Mammalia taken together. 



Next to Man, the carnivorous beasts possess the most destructive habits, and are 

 at once the enemies of their fellow-animals, and the rivals of Man. Having the same 

 appetites and the same fondness for animal food, they are under the necessity of dis- 

 puting with him the possession of their prey; and in the first ages of human society 

 these formed one of the most formidable checks to civiUzation. Even at the present 

 time, in civilized Europe, it is by the utmost vigilance alone that he can preserve his 

 flocks and poultry from the ravages of the Wolf, the Fox, the Ferret, and the 

 Weasel. 



Man thus carries on a continual war against the carnivorous animals, which he 

 either pursues for pleasure or for safety. However superior to him in bodily strength 

 or swiftness, the most powerful fall ready victims to the union of numbers, the supe- 

 rior powers of his mind, and especially to that peculiar art with which he avails him- 

 self of the inert materials of Nature as instruments of destruction. No race of animals 

 can resist the agency of gunpowder; the Whale falls before the harpoon; the Ele- 

 phant and Lion cannot evade the pit-fall and the snare. The largest animals receive 

 deafli or captivity at his hands, as certainly as the smallest; and Blan can confine the 

 limits, or even exterminate every animal which comes within the sphere of his influ- 

 ence. 



All animals, whether of the same or of different species, are naturally in a state of 

 warfare. It is chiefly in the tribes more particularly styled carnivorous, that this war 

 proceeds to open hostilities; yet there is a silent and a secret opposition of interest, 



even among the most peaceful tribes. As their numbers continually Increase, food 

 becomes scarce, disease thins their numbers, and the remainder fall a ready prey to 

 the stronger and fiercer animals. Like plants, they destroy each other as efi'ectually 

 by the mere occupancy of space as they could have done by the fiercest conflicts. 

 The rising generation soon repairs the loss occasioned by the latter, but nothing can 

 extend the numbers of a species beyond the limits marked by Natm*e in the quantity 

 of its food. 



This universal war of species is an established law of Nature, and, however start- 

 hng it may appear at first sight, is advantageous on the whole. Violent deaths are as 

 necessary to the proper regulation of Nature as natural deaths. The latter preserve 

 the perpetual bloom of youth over the face of the earth ; the former assist in main- 

 taining the correct balance among the numbers of difi'erent species, and in restraining 

 their exuberance within the proper limits. 



To illustrate this important law of Nature, let us consider for a moment some one 

 of the inferior species, which serve for food to the higher classes. The Herrings 

 offer themselves, at certain seasons, in myriads to our fishermen; and, after nourishing 

 the Birds which sport on the surface of the ocean, as well as the predaceous tribes 

 frequenting its abysses, form the principal support of many nations of Europe during 

 a considerable part of the year. The destruction which takes place among these 

 Fishes is overwhelming; yet the consequences would be tremendous if their fecundity 

 were not thus restrained. They would soon cover the surface of the sea, their numbers 

 would then destroy each other, for want of sufficient nourishment their fecundity would 

 diminish, and famine and disease would produce the same results which other animals 

 now effect. But their undevoured bodies would taint the atmosphere, perhaps the 

 ocean itself, and the putrid miasmata arising therefrom would carry disease and death 

 into all species of animated beings, as well as their own. Thus the false sonsibiUty 

 which seeks to restrain the mutual destruction of animals would effectually ensure the 

 entire annihilation of them all. As Nature is at present constituted, Life is the con- 

 sequence of Death; were it otherwise disposed, one universal death-like stillness 

 would pervade the face of Nature. As in the animal frame, the continued action of 

 the vital power necessai'ily occasions death, so in the frame of Animated Nature the 

 continuance of reproduction must be followed by a corresponding destruction. The 

 same observations which have been made upon the Herrings are applicable to every other 

 species, and hence we may fairly infer that there exists an absolute necessity for the 

 mutual destruction of animals. The futility of that philosophy of the Brahmins which 

 condemns the use of animal food, is sufficiently obvious. From being founded in 

 Nature it is a legitimate usage, and absolutely essential to the well-being of the 

 whole. 



By taking a general view of the constitution of Nature, we are enabled to explain 

 those apparent incongruities which strike the observer at first sight. We then dis- 

 cover that '* these scattered evils are lost in the blaze of superabundant goodness, as 

 the spots on the disk of the sun fade before the splendour of his rays." In every 

 depai'tment of Nature we find 



*' All partial evil — universal good." 



In these wars of the animals, Nature has provided that each creature should meet 

 its death in the easiest possible manner. There is a certain spot in the spinal marrow 

 where the two ascending main nerves that form the great brain cross one another, and 

 if this spot be injured, death is the immediate consequence. This fact is well known 

 to Huntsmen and Butchers. The latter plunges his knife into the neck of the Ox at 

 that exact spot, the animal immediately drops, and ceases to live after a few convul- 

 sions. On the same principle the Huntsman cuts through the neck of his game. 



The Carnivorous Animals always seize their prey by the neck, and bite through 

 this part. In the same manner the Hound kills the Hare, and the Bird of prey its 

 quarry. The Pole-cat also destroys its prey at a single spring. Dr Gall locked up 

 a Pole-cat for some time, during which he fed it on bones till its teeth were blunted. 

 While in this state, it was unable to kill the Rabbits placed in its kennel with the 

 same despatch as formerly; but when they had again grown sharp, Gall observed 

 that, on the very first leap it made on the Rabbit, it cut the little animal's neck on 

 that very spot with a sharp fang, and instantaneous death ensued. He observed the 

 same thing at a hawking party of the Emperor Joseph the Second. As soon as the 

 Hawk had reached the Hare, it would immediately cut through that part of her neck 

 with its bill. 



Yet Nature seems to have stamped a character of marked ferocity upon most Car- 

 nivorous tribes. The Cat torments the captive Mouse, and seems to take delight in 

 its convulsive struggles to escape. The Tigress or female Leopard brings her prey 

 still palpitating to her den, and gives the first lessons of ferocity to her progeny. 



That sentiment of humanity towards our own species, imparted by Nature for the 

 proper regulation of social intercourse, is transferred by us to the more intelligent and 

 sensitive animals — -in other words, to those which most nearly resemble ourselves. 

 We cut and eat a live Oyster without the slightest commiseration, because it does 

 not exhibit external signs of sensation, nor does it raise a cry of suffering when the 

 fatal moment arrives : yet few, whose feelings have not been blunted by early habit, 

 can bear to immolate a Lamb. A wise Providence has thus protected the higher 

 animals from the gratuitous infliction of pain on the part of Man. However necessary 

 the trade of Butcher or of Executioner may be to society, it always appears in some 

 degree odious. The Brahmins have carried this sentiment to a ridiculous extent. 

 They permit the most disgusting Insects to frequent their houses, their food, and their 

 persons, without destroying them; and the Mussulmans have erected hospitals for the 

 accommodation of infirm Dogs. 



However odious the Carnivorous Animals may appear to us in the exercise of their 

 legitimate calling, our sense of retributive justice is satisfied in knowing that most of 

 them undergo the same fate which they have inflicted on others. " Every dog has 

 his day," according to the proverb. The proper counterpoise and equilibrium of ani- 

 mals could not be established without them, and their own final fate shows the general 

 system of reciprocity and that balance of good and evil prevailing throughout the Ani- 

 mal Kingdom. 



The chief benevolent emotions which the Carnivorous tribes present are seen in their 



