HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



219 



ever, blame the clime to which they belong, norcenfure 

 the Supreme Artificer who formed them. 



What our philofophers fay with refpecl: to the fmaller 

 ferocity of American wild beads, infcead of affifting them 

 to prove the malignity of that clime, ferves only to de- 

 monflrate its mildnefs and bounty. " In America," 

 fays count de Bulfon, " where the air and the land are 

 " more mild than thofe of Africa, the tyger, the lion, 

 " and the panther are terrible only in name . . . They 

 " have degenerated, if fiercenefs joined to cruelty made 

 " their nature ; or, to fpeak more properly, they have 

 " only fuffered the influence of the climate." What 

 more can be defired in favour of the climate of Ameri- 

 ca ? Why, therefore, does he ever adduce the fmaller 

 ferocity of American animals as an argument of their 

 degeneracy occalioned by the malignity of that clime ? 

 If the climate of the old continent fliould be efteemed 

 better than that of the new world, becaufe under the 

 former the wild beafts are found more terrible, for the 

 fame reafon the climate of Africa ought to be efteemed 

 incomparably more excellent than that of Europe. This 

 argument, which we have already made ufe of, might 

 be carried much farther to the confulion of our philo- 

 fophers. 



But thofe authors have not a jufl idea of American 

 animals. It is true that the Mitzli, or Mexican lion, is 

 not to be compared with the celebrated lions of Africa. 

 The latter fpecies either never did pafs into the new world, 

 or was extirpated by man ; but the former does not yield 

 to thofe of its fpecies, or the lion without hair of the 

 old continent, according to the teftimony of Hernandez, 

 who knew both the one and the other. The Mexican 

 tyger, whether it is or is not of the fame fpecies with the 



royal 



