FOX HUXTDTG D? AMEEICA. 253 



Here comes in a reflection ■which, pertinently illustrates the 

 ladder-like ascension of scientific inquiry towards truth. 

 Before Linnaeus, the methods of classification were so yague 

 that nothing more definite could be said of them, than that 

 food, size, shape and color were the principal rules. But 

 the great classifier made an immense advance upon this loose 

 mode, and his terse definitions are perfect, so far as external 

 signs can go, or an accurate knowledge of habits substantiate 

 them. Buffon, who repudiated systems, only made confusion 

 worse confounded ; and in the fierce collisions which ensued 

 between his followers and their technicalists, (who swore by 

 their master, the great Swede,) all systems of classification 

 seemed to be in danger of being swept overboard. 



Cuvier at once stepped to the helm and righted everything. 

 He brought along with him, not alone the strong arm and the 

 commanding eye, which wield success, but as well, a heavy 

 ballast of fissU remains, and huge pre-Adamite bones, which 

 soon steadied the storm-shaken vessel. Xow, Naturalists 

 were for the first time forced to realize, though unwiUmgly, 

 that the only absolute and mathematical law of classification 

 in Zoology, was to be looked for in the dental and osseous struc- 

 ture. The old methods are accepted as suggestive adjuncts, 

 but by no means as absolute authority. 



In the dental formula of the genus vulpes, there is only a 

 slight, but decisive difference from that of the genus canis ; 

 the upper incisor being less curved. It was, however, suffici- 

 ent to determine Cuvier. The other marked traits of differ- 

 ence are, that animals of this genus, generally, are smaller, 

 and the number of species known, greater, than among the 

 wolves ; they diffuse a foetid odor, dig burrows, and attack 

 none but the weaker quadrupeds, or birds, &c. Yet, despite 

 their courage upon this point, the venerable Editors of the 

 " Quadrupeds," with characteristic caution, persist in what 

 may be called " hedging their position," when they say : — 



As a general rule, we are obliged to admit that a fox is a 



