THE MONKEY FAMILY. 



73 



Again, "to regard these bungled sketches as 

 beings equally perfect with others ; to call in the 

 aid of final causes to account for such dispropor- 

 tioned productions; and to make nature as brilliant 

 in these, as in her most beautiful animals, is to 

 view her through a narrow tube, and to substitute 

 our own fancies for her intentions." 



And again, " in fine, when the pressure of hun- 

 ger becomes superior to the dread of danger, or 

 death, being unable to descend," (why so ?) "they 

 allow themselves to tumble down, like an inan- 

 imate mass : — for their stiff and inactive limbs 

 have not time to extend themselves in order to 

 break the fall." 



Had the author of the passages just quoted, 

 been with me in the forests of Guiana, his opinion 

 of the sloth, would have been diametrically opposed 

 to that which he has so erroneously entertained, 

 and so rashly committed to paper. 



Believe me, gentle reader, good dame nature has 

 never doomed a child of hers to such a sorry 

 task as this, of falling wilfully from a tree through 

 the pressure of hunger. No such thing. 

 . Long ago, I shewed in the " Wanderings," that 

 the sloth is amply provided by its formation, with 

 everything requisite for the preservation of health 

 and life, in the arboreal regions where Providence 

 has ordered it to roam. 



