154 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO iv. 



The crawling crocodiles, beneath that move, 

 Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above; 60 



With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour 

 Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour. 

 Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day 

 One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display j 

 From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd, 

 And one great Slaughter-house the warring world! 



so far over his mouth, that he is necessitated to turn upon his back, 

 when he takes fish that swim over him, and hence seems peculiarly 

 formed to catch those that swim under him. 



The crawling crocodiles, 1. 59. As this animal lives chiefly at the 

 bottom of the rivers, which he frequents, he has the power of open- 

 ing the upper jaw as well as the under one, and thus with greater 

 facility catches the fish or water-fowl which swim over him. 



One great slaughter-house, 1. 66. As vegetables are an inferior order 

 of animals fixed to the soil; and as the locomotive animals prey upon 

 them, or upon each other; the world may indeed be said to be one 

 great slaughter-house. As the digested food of vegetables consists 

 principally of sugar, and from this is produced again their mucilage, 

 starch, and oil, and since animals are sustained by these vegetable 

 productions, it would seem that the sugar-making process carried, on 

 in vegetable vessels was the great source of life to all organized beings. 

 And that if our improved chemistry should ever discover the art of 

 making sugar from fossile or aerial matter without the assistance of 

 vegetation, food for animals would then become as plentiful as water, 

 and they might live upon the earth without preying on each other, as 



