HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



221 



few of the particulars which are told of Ailatic tygers 

 they would be confldered as idle exaggerating boafters 

 (/). The account which Pliny (k) gives of the artifices 

 of hunters in robbing the tyger of its young, and the 

 coolnefs of temper with which it carries them off again 

 one by one, and that which Bomare relates (/) of the 

 combat in the year 1764, in Windfor foreft, in England, 

 between the flag and a tyger brought from India to the 

 duke of Cumberland, in which the (lag came off con- 

 queror, fhews us that the ferocity of thofe Afiatic wild 

 beafts is not fo great as count de Buffon and Mr. de Paw 

 reprefent it. 



The American wolves are not lefs ftrotiff nor bold than 



o 



thofe of the old continent, as all who have had any ex- 

 perience of them both know. Even flags, which as 

 Pliny fays, are very tranquil animals, are fo daring in 

 Mexico, that they frequently attack the hunters ; this 

 fact is tcftified by Hernandez, and is notorious in that 

 kingdom ; we have feen in our own dwelling the vi- 

 cious nature of a flag, which had become aJmoft domes- 

 tic, fliew itfelf moft cruelly upon an American girl. 



But let the American quadrupeds be fmaller in fize, 

 more ungraceful in form, and more pufillanimous in their 

 nature ; let us grant to thofe philofophers that from fuch 

 a portion the happinefs of the climate of the old continent 

 is to be deduced ; they will not ftill perfuade us, that it 

 is a full proof and a certain argument of the malignity 

 of the American climate, while they do fiot fliew us in 



the 



(*) It is fufficient to obferve the little credit given by thefe authors to the tef- 

 timony of Mr. Condamine, notwithftanding the eiteem in which they held that 

 learned mathematician. 



(k) ' Nat. Hift. lib. viii. cap. 1 8. 



(/) Bomare Di&ion. d'Hiftorie Nat. V. Tigre. 



