HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



195 



Befides, who has informed Mr. Buffon, that the 

 Gibbon and Magoto, the Mammon and Pappion (four 

 forts of apes), do not copulate together, and produce a 

 fruitful individual ? The author has not made any ex- 

 periment of it, nor cited any other naturalifl: who had ; 

 and notwithflanding he decides that all the above men- 

 tioned quadrupeds are fo many different fpecies. The 

 diftin&ion of the fpecies of quadrupeds adopted by him 

 is therefore very doubtful and uncertain, and we cannot 

 know whether certain quadrupeds, which he reckons dif- 

 ferent fpecies, are not one fingle fpecies ; and on the 

 contrary, if others which he believes to be one fpecies, 

 may not be fpecifically different. 



But leaving this afide, it would be fufficient to caufe 

 a great diffidence of the divifion which Mr. Buffon has 

 made of quadrupeds, to perceive the contradictions 

 which appear in this and the other parts of his hiftory, 

 though in other refpecls it is extremely valuable. In 

 the difcourfe which he gives in the twenty-ninth vo- 

 lume, on the Degeneracy of Animals, he affirms, that if 

 we are to enumerate the quadrupeds proper to the new 

 continent, we fliall find fifty different fpecies ; and in the 

 enumeration which he makes of the quadrupeds of both 

 continents, he fays, that thofe of America hardly make 

 forty fpecies. In the above enumeration he reckons 

 the tame goat, the ftiamois goat, and wild goat, three 

 different fpecies ; and in vol. xxiv. treating of thofe 

 animals, he fays, that thofe three quadrupeds, and the 

 other fix or feven fpecies of goats, which are diftinguifh- 

 ed by different names, are all of one and the fame fpecies. 

 So that we ought to abate the eight or nine fpecies from 

 the one hundred and thirty which he numbers in the old 

 continent. In the above mentioned enumeration he 



counts 



