HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



213 



<s covered by you, is as ancient as yours, and our ani- 

 iC mals are cotemporary with yours. They are under 

 *' no neceffiry of conforming with your animals, neither 

 " are we to blame that the fpecies of our animals have 

 " been unknown to your naturalifts, or confounded by 

 ** a fuperficial knowledge of them. Therefore either 

 " your oftriches are irregular becaufe they do not con- 

 " form with ours ; or at leaft ours ought not to be call- 

 * ed irregular becaufe they do not conform with yours. 

 " Until you demonftrate to us by inconteftible proofs, 

 " that the firft oftriches came from the hand of the 

 " Creator with only two toes united by a membrane, 

 " you will never perfuade us of the irregularity of our 

 " Touyou." This mode of argument, which is with- 

 out doubt unanfwerable, is fufficient to defeat the fyf- 

 terns adopted by thofe philofophers, arifing from flight 

 and indigefled ideas, and ftrong prepoffeffions in favour 

 of the old continent. 



Thofe philofophers are not more happy in their dif- 

 courfes on the tails of quadrupeds than in their obferv- 

 ations on the feet of oftriches. They fay dire&ly, and 

 without any regard to truth, that the greater part of 

 the quadrupeds of the new continent are totally deftitute 

 of tails ; which, like all the other effe&s obferved by 

 them in thofe unfortunate countries, they afcribe to the 

 mifery of the American iky, to the infancy of nature 

 in that part of the world, to the fatality of the climate, 

 and other combinations of the elements. Thus thofe 

 celebrated philofophers of this enlightened century rea- 

 fon. But there being, according to count de Buffon, 

 feventy fpecies of American quadrupeds, it would be 

 neceflfary that at leaft forcy of them were without tails 

 in order to verify what Mr. de Paw has faid, that the 



majority 



