FOX HUNTING IN AMERICA. 2538 
Here comes in a reflection which pertinently illustrates the 
ladder-like ascension of scientific inquiry towards truth. 
Before Linnzeus, the methods of classification were so vague 
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 fossil remains, and huge pre-Adamite bones, which 
soon steadied the storm-shaken vessel. Now, Naturalists 
were for the first time forced to realize, though unwillingly, 
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 
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