30 
putrid, and to be therefore especially endued with 
adequate implements and powers of destruction, cut- 
ting, piercing, and lacerating, or of suction and in- 
gurgitation; some to subsist chiefly or wholly on 
vegetable food, and to be endued accordingly with 
teeth for crushing and grinding; and to be deprived 
of claws, which are not wanted for seizing and rend- 
ing herbage. These circumstances doubtless decide 
the dispositions and influence the habits of animals 
in the first instance. They are active, because they 
are destined to and fitted for activity: they are fe- 
rocious, in obedience to a primary instinctive im- 
pulse. Others are mild and sluggish, timid and 
shy, as if conscious of deficient power. There are 
in these cases, as in most other conditions of natural 
objects, certain extremes, and media occupied by 
individuals between those extremes. These natural 
characteristics approach nearer to, or recede further 
from, either extreme in the same individuals, per- 
haps, at least, amongst those of the same species, 
according to other influencing circumstances: such 
as a copious and constant supply of natural food, 
and greater or less familiarity with man; or pecu- 
liar states of body. 
Considered as endued with means of offence and 
defence, with characteristics of a repellent or attrac- 
tive nature, some individuals at least; in every class, 
bear to others of the same class a similar relation to 
that which is borne by other individuals of wholly 
dissimilar form and of a different class to some indi- 
viduals of the latter class. Thus the lion is to the 
