CARNIVORA. 
S29 
PLANTIGRADES. 
The plantigrade carnivorous animals are they 
which bring all the under part of the foot, as far as 
the heel, in contact with the ground in walking or 
running ; the whole of which is denuded, or without 
hair, and is generally callous, the better to protect 
it from injuries it might otherwise receive from the 
hardness or sharpness of stones, &c.; their nails, 
though generally very long, and much curved, are 
exposed to injury and wear, as they are not at all 
retractile. 
By this arrangement of the feet they are necessarily 
less expeditious in their locomotion than the digi- 
tigrades, and are therefore by so much the less 
qualified for predacious habits ; as their claws are 
little fitted for such purposes, it is principally on 
their teeth that they rely for attack and defence; 
and an examination of these will show, decidedly, 
that they qualify them as little for the tearing and 
masticating flesh, as their other physical properties 
for the pursuit and destruction of living prey. They 
may therefore be considered the second principal 
gradation of carnivorous animals; or may, indeed, 
be treated as semicarnivorous ; for, although they 
feed on flesh, when they can obtain it, they can be 
sustained altogether on herbs, a peculiarity which 
enables many of them to inhabit parts, where they 
