SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
73 
dinary power of smell, their strength, agility and flexibility, 
and, in a word, by all those qualities which fit them for a 
life of rapine: hence we can neither distinguish them as 
flying, leaping, climbing, creeping, swimming, or walking 
animals, but preeminently and peculiarly as rapacious ani¬ 
mals. Still it must not be understood that I am either 
unacquainted with, or regardless of, the fact that some of 
the families — as the bears — can subsist entirely on a 
vegetable diet, while others — as the shrews, hedgehogs 
and moles — live almost exclusively on insects. These 
are the exceptions, and are evident departures from the 
normal character of rapacity; but they are exceptions 
which will by no means justify the disintegration of the 
group. Now this excessive rapacity, — this combination 
of qualities adapted to predatory life,—this facility of dis¬ 
covering, overtaking, overcoming, lacerating, slaughtering, 
devouring and digesting, — are peculiarly the attributes of 
the cartilaginous fishes. Nothing can be more extraordi¬ 
nary than the power of smell possessed by the shark : it 
serves, as a naturalist of eminence has observed, both for 
eye and ear : like the vulture, the shark snuffs carnage 
from afar, and its entire race are the scavengers of the 
ocean. The terrestrial Rapacia, although viewed by us 
with disgust or dread, do but faintly shadow forth the 
horrors committed by the monsters of the deep. Some of 
the terrestrial Rapacia— such for instance as the common 
otter, and more particularly the sea-otter, a perfectly dis¬ 
tinct form, — have a decided predilection for the water; 
but these must not be employed as connecting links with 
the class of cartilaginous fishes : a moment’s consideration 
would be sufficient to assure us that they lead to the seals 
among the swimming placentals. 
