COMPENSATION. 
163 
food; i. e. is calculated to counteract the effects of reple¬ 
tion.* 
Or there may be cases in which a defect is artificial, and 
compensated by the very cause which produces it. Thus 
the sheep, in the domesticated state in which we see it, is 
destitute of the ordinary means of defence or escape; is 
incapable either of resistance or flight. But this is not so 
with the wild animal. The natural sheep is swift and 
active; and if it lose these qualities when it comes under 
the subjection of man, the loss is compensated by his pro¬ 
tection. Perhaps there is no species of quadruped what¬ 
ever, which suffers so little as this does from the depreda¬ 
tion of animals of prey. 
For the sake of making our meaning better understood, 
we have considered this business of compensation under 
certain particularities of constitution, in which it appears 
to be most conspicuous. This view of the subject neces¬ 
sarily limits the instances to single species of animals. But 
there are compensations, perhaps not less certain, which 
extend over large classes, and to large portions of living 
nature. 
I. In quadrupeds, the deficiency of teeth is usually com¬ 
pensated by the faculty of rumination. The sheep, deer, 
and ox tribe, are without fore-teeth in the upper jaw. These 
ruminate. The horse and ass are furnished with teeth in 
the upper jaw, and do not ruminate. In the former class, 
the grass and hay descend into the stomach nearly in the 
state in which they are cropped from the pasture, or gath¬ 
ered from the bundle. In the stomach, they are softened 
by the gastric juice, which in these animals is unusually 
copious. Thus softened and rendered tender, they are 
returned a second time to the action of the mouth, where 
the grinding teeth complete at their leisure the trituration 
*Blumenbach states, in his Manual of Natural History, that he had 
conversed with many Hollanders who had lived in Guiana, and from 
them collected, that this apparently miserable animal is rather an en¬ 
viable one. First, he nourishes himself entirely from leaves, and, there¬ 
fore, when he has once climbed a tree, he can live on the same dish a 
quarter of a year. Secondly, he does not drink at all. Thirdly, on a 
tree he is exposed to but few enemies, and when the sloth marks that 
a tiger-cat is climbing up a branch, it goes softly to the end of the 
branch, and rocks it till the tiger-cat falls off, so that seldom is there 
an instance that a tiger-cat surprises one: even upon the ground, so 
powerful are the claws of the sloth, and so fearful its cries, that its 
enemies generally get the worst. So idle is Buffon’s declamation against 
the goodness and wisdom of Providence, drawn from this beast. 
Paxton 
