INTRODUCTION* 
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pctites may be changed ; and those that feed only 
upon grass may be rendered carnivorous. Goldsmith 
saw a sheep that would eat flesh., and a horse that 
was fond of oysters. 
But not their appetites, or their figure alone, 
but their very dispositions, and their natural saga- 
city, are altered by the vicinity of man. In those 
countries where men have seldom intruded, some 
animals have been found, established in a kind of 
civil state of society. Remote from the tyranny 
of man, they seem to have a spirit of mutual be- 
nevolence, and mutual friendship. The beavers, 
in these distant solitudes, are known to build like 
architects, and rule like citizens. The habitations 
that these have been seen to erect, exceed the 
houses of the human inhabitants of the same coun- 
try, both in neatness and convenience. But as soon 
as man intrudes upon their society, they seem im- 
pressed with the terrors of their inferior situation, 
their spirit of society ceases, the bond is dissolved, 
and every animal looks for safety in solitude, and 
there tries all its little industry to shift only for 
itself. 
Next to human influence, the climate seems to 
have the strongest effects both upon the nature and 
form of quadrupeds. As in man, we have seen 
some alterations, produced by the variety of his 
situation ; so in the lower ranks that are more 
subject to variation, the influence of climate is 
mote readily perceived. As these are more nearly 
