THE ANIMAL CREATION. 165 



equalled by those of the tiger itself. It were 

 loss of time to adduce any more specimens of 

 beauty and perfection in the animal world, 

 every part of which teems with objects calcu- 

 lated to increase our thanks and gratitude to 

 God. When we talk of this ugly animal, or 

 of that deformed reptile, or of such a pernicious 

 insect, the true solution of these remarks is, 

 that we avoid the bear because he would hug 

 us to death ; that we dread the cayman because 

 he would swallow us ; and that we abhor the 

 bug on account of its bite and unsavoury 

 smell. Still, whilst we are examining these 

 animals as they lie dead before us, we may re- 

 mark, with the monster Nero, treading over 

 his own prostrate mother, we did not think 

 that they had been so handsome. In our 

 rambles up and down this globe, when we fall 

 in with animals whose shape appears to us 

 either defective or deformed, and whose habits 

 cannot be accounted for, we may lay it down 

 to a certainty, that the work of our great 

 Creator is perfect in all its parts ; and that we 

 are at a loss how to turn it to our profit, solely 

 because we have not spent a sufficient time at 

 school, in the instructive field of Nature, 



M 3 



