MAMMALIA. 7 



according to the medium ia wMch the Mammalia live, and 

 according to their size and strength. 



Of all the animals, the Mammalia are those which show the 

 greatest intelligence ; but this intelligence varies much according 

 to the different animals. It is, above all, applied to the necessity 

 of self-preservation, the search for food, and the reproduction 

 of their species. This faculty shows itself equally in many other 

 cases, which we shall have to point out in detail in the sequel of 

 this volume. 



Nature has provided with admirable care and an infinite provi- 

 dence for all the wants of the Mammalia. To the animal of a 

 mild and peaceable character, to which fighting and struggling 

 against too redoubtable adversaries is forbidden, she has provided 

 the means of avoiding and escaping from its enemies. Some are 

 marvellously organized for running, as the Hare and the Gazelle. 

 Others hide themselves in subterranean retreats, which serve them 

 at the same time as barns, in which to preserve their provisions 

 against the winter : such are the Rat, the Marmot, &c. Others, 

 like the Armadillo, present to their adversaries an invulnerable 

 cuirass. Some, erecting their bristles, present to the enemy a 

 forest of spikes. There is not one animal, however weak it may 

 be, which has not its artifices and means of defence against its 

 most terrible enemies. If it were otherwise, all of those feeble 

 creatures would have been soon exterminated. 



Man has reduced to a state of domestication, and has subjugated 

 to his will, so as to make of them useful assistants in his labours, 

 sundry races of Mammalia. In the state of domesticity the 

 animal undergoes a physical transformation, and its descendants 

 become still more modified. We shall have to insist particularly, 

 in this volume, on the manners arid habits of domestic animals. The 

 classification of the Mammalia which will be followed in this work 

 is that of Cuvier, modified by the discoveries and observations of 

 subsequent naturalists. True to our plan of exposition, we shall 

 arrange the Mammalia according to the degree of the state of 

 perfection of their organism. 



We will begin with those singular beings which hold the 

 middle place between Birds, Fishes, and Mammalia, which are 

 called OrnithorhynchincB and Echidnce, and of which De Blainville 

 rightly made a separate order, under the name of Monotremata. 



