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ing renews for labour Such are the delights of the habitation, that is assigned to man. Without any one of these he must have been wretched, and none of these could his own industry have supplied. But, while many of his wants are thus kindly furnished on the one hand, there are numberless inconveniences to excite his industry on the other. This habitation, though provided with all the conveniences of air, pasturage, and water, is but a desert place without human cultivation. The lowest animal finds more conveniences in the wilds of nature, than he who boasts himself their lord. The earth itself, where human art has not pervaded, puts on a frightful gloomy appearance. The forests are dark and tangled; the meadows overgrown with rank weeds; and the brooks stray without a determined channel. To the savage uncontriving man, the earth is an abode of desolation, where his shelter is insufficient, and his food precarious A world, thus furnished with advantages on one side, and inconveniences on the other, is the proper abode of reason, is the fittest to exercise the industry of a free and a thinking creature. Those evils, which art can remedy, and prescience guard against, are a proper call for the exertion of his faculties. God beholds with pleasure that being, which he has made, converting the wretchedness of his natural situation into a theatre of triumph; bringing all the tribes of nature into subjection to his will; and producing that order and uniformity upon earth, of which his own heavenly fabric is so bright an example. Goldsmith.

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ON THE ADAPTATION OF ANIMALS TO THEIR RESPECTIVE CONDITIONS.

ALTHOUGH the variety of quadrupeds is great, they all seem well adapted to the stations in which they are placed. There is scarcely one of them, how rudely shaped soever, that is not formed to enjoy a happiness fitted to its nature. All its deformities are only relative to us, but all its enjoyments are peculiarly its own. We may suppose the sloth, that takes up months in climbing a single tree, or the mole, whose eyes are too

small for distinct vision, are wretched and helpless creatures; but it is probable, that their life, with respect to themselves, is a life of luxury. The most pleasing food is easily obtained, and, as they are abridged in one pleasure, it may be doubled in those which remain. Quadrupeds, and all the lower kinds of animals, have, at worst, but the torments of immediate evil to encounter, and this is but transient and accidental: man has two sources of calamity, that which he foresees, as well as that which he feels; so that, if his rewards were to be in this life alone, then indeed would he be of all beings the most wretched.-The heads of quadrupeds, though differing from each other, are in general adapted to their way of living. In some it is sharp, the better to fit the animal for turning up the earth, in which its food lies. In some it is long, in order to give a greater room for the olfactory nerves, as in dogs, who are to hunt and find out their prey by the scent. In others it is short and thick, as in the lion, to increase the strength of the jaw, and to fit it the better for combat. In quadrupeds that feed upon grass, they are enabled to hold down their heads to the ground by a strong tendinous ligament, that runs from the head to the middle of the back. This serves to raise the head, although it has been held to the ground for several hours, without any labour or any assistance from the muscles of the neck.-The teeth of all animals are entirely fitted to the nature of their food. Those of such as live upon flesh, differ in every respect from such as live upon vegetables.-Their legs are not less fitted,than their teeth, to their respective wants or enjoyments. In some they are made for strength only, and to support a vast unwieldly frame, without much flexibility or beautiful proportion. Thus the legs of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the sea-horse, resemble pillars. Were they made smaller, they would be unfit to support the body; were they endowed with greater flexibility or swiftness, it would be useless, as they do not pursue other animals for food, and, conscious of their own superior strength, there are none that they deign to avoid. Deer, hares, and other creatures that are to find safety only in flight, have their legs made entirely for speed: they are slen

der and nervous. Were it not for this advantage, every carnivorous animal would soon make them a prey, and their races would be entirely extinguished. But, in the present state of nature, the means of safety are rather superior to those of offence: and the pursuing animal must owe success only to patience, perseverance, and industry. The feet of some that live upon fish are made for swimming. The toes of those animals are joined together with membranes, being web-footed like a goose or a duck, by which they swim with great rapidity. Those animals that lead a life of hostility, and live upon others, have their feet armed with sharp claws, which some can sheath and unsheath at will. Those, on the contrary, who lead peaceable lives, have generally hoofs, which serve some as weapons of defence, and which, in all, are better fitted for traversing extensive tracts of rugged country, than the claw-foot of their pursuers. The stomach also is generally proportioned to the quality of the animal's food, or the ease with which it is obtained. In those that live upon flesh and such nourishing substances, it is small, affording such juices, as are best adapted to digest its contents. On the contrary, such animals, as feed entirely upon vegetables, have the stomach very large. Those who chew the cud, have no less than four stomachs, all which serve as so many laboratories, to prepare and turn their coarse food into proper nourishment. In Africa, where the plants afford greater nourishment than in our temperate climate, several animals, that with us have four stomachs, have there but two. Goldsmith.

ON THE ADAPTATION OF ANIMALS TO THEIR RESPECTIVE CONDITIONS-CONTINUED.

ALL animals are fitted by nature to fill up some peculiar station. The greatest animals are made for inoffensive life, to range the plains and the forest without injuring others: to live upon the productions of the earth, the grass of the fields, or the tender branches of trees. These, secure in their own strength, neither fly from any other quadrupeds, nor yet attack them. Na

ture, to the greatest strength, has added the most gentle and harmless dispositions. Without this, these enormous creatures would be more than a match for all the rest of the creation; for, what devastation might not ensue, were the elephant, or the rhinoceros, or the buffalo, as fierce and as mischievous as the tiger or the rat? In order to oppose these large animals, and, in some measure to prevent their exuberance, there is a species of the carnivorous kind, of inferior strength indeed, but of greater activity and cunning. The lion and the tiger generally watch for the larger kinds of prey, attack them at some disadvantage, and commonly jump upon them by surprise. None of the carnivorous kinds, except the dog alone, will make a voluntary attack, but with the odds on their side. They are all cowards by nature, and usually catch their prey by a bound from some lurking-place, seldom attempting to invade them openly; for the larger beasts are too powerful for them, and the smaller too swift.-A lion does not willingly attack a horse, and then only when compelled by the keenest hunger. The combats between the lion and horse are frequent enough in Italy, where they are both enclosed in a kind of amphitheatre fitted for that purpose. The lion always approaches wheeling about, while the horse presents his hinder legs to the enemy. The lion, in this manner, goes round and round, still narrowing his circle, till he comes to the proper distance to make his spring. Just at the time the lion springs, the horse lashes with both legs from behind, and, in general, the odds are in his favour; it more often happening, that the lion is stunned and struck motionless by the blow, than that he effects his jump between the horse's shoulders. If the lion is stunned, and left sprawling, the horse escapes, without attempting to improve his victory: but if the lion succeeds, he sticks to his prey, and tears the horse in pieces in a very short time. But it is not among the larger animals of the forest alone, that these hostilities are carried on. There is a minuter and a still more treacherous contest between the lower ranks of quadrupeds. The panther hunts for the sheep and the goat; the catamountain for the hare or the rabbit; and the

wild cat for the squirrel or the mouse. In proportion as each carnivorous animal wants strength, it uses all the assistance of patience, assiduity, and cunning. However, the arts of these to pursue are not so great, as the tricks of their prey to escape; so that the power of destruction in one class is inferior to the power of safety in the other. Were this otherwise, the forest would soon be dispeopled of the feebler races of animals, and beasts of prey themselves would want at one time that subsistence, which they lavishly destroyed at another.— Few wild animals seek their prey in the day-time: they are then generally deterred by their fears of man in the inhabited countries, and by the excessive heat of the sun in those extensive forests, that lie towards the south, and in which they reign the undisputed tyrants. As soon as the morning, therefore, appears, the carnivorous animals retire to their dens; and the elephant, the horse, the deer, and all the hare kinds, those inoffensive tenants of the plain, make their appearance. But again at night-fall the state of hostility begins: the whole forest then echoes to a variety of different howlings. Nothing can be more terrible than an African landscape at the close of evening: the deep-toned roarings of the lion; the shriller yellings of the tiger ; the jackal pursuing by the scent, and barking like a dog; the hyena, with a note peculiarly solitary and dreadful; but, above all, the hissing of the various kinds of serpents, that then begin their call, and, as I am assured, make a much louder symphony, than the birds in our groves in a morning.-Beasts of prey seldom devour each other; nor can any thing, but the greatest degree of hunger, induce them to it. What they chiefly seek after is the deer or the goat, those harmless creatures, that seem made to embellish nature. These are

either pursued or surprised, and afford the most agreeable repast to their destroyers. The most usual method, even with the fiercest animals, is to hide and crouch near some path frequented by their prey, or some water where cattle come to drink, and seize them at once with a bound. The lion and the tiger leap twenty feet at a spring; and this, rather than their swiftness or strength, is what they have most to depend

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