ANIMALS OF THE NEW WORLD.
THE animals of the New World were not more known to the Europeans, than were our animals to the Americans. The Peruvians and Mexicans were the only people on the new continent, which were half civilized. The latter had no domestic animals; and those of the former consisted of the lama, the pacos, and the alco, a small animal which was domestic in the house like our little dogs. The pacos and the lama, like the chamois goat, live only on the highest mountains, and are found on those of Peru, Chili, and New Spain. Though they had become domestic among the Peruvians, and consequently spread over the neighbouring countries, their multiplication was not abundant, and has even decreased in their native places, since the introduction of European cattle, which have succeededastonishingly in all the southern countries of the American continent.
It appears singular that in a world, occupied almost entirely by savages, whose manners somewhat resembled those of the brutes, there should be no connection, no society existing between them and the animals by which they were surrounded; and this was absolutely the case, for there were no domestic animals, excepting where the people were in some degree civilized. Does not this prove that man, in a savage state, is nothing more than a species of animal, incapable of ruling others; and possessing only individual faculties, employs them for procuring his subsistence, and providing for his security, by attacking the weak, and avoiding the strong, but without entertaining any idea of real power, or endeavouring to reduce them to subjection? Every nation, even those which are but just emerging from barbarism, has its domestic animals. With us the horse, the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hog, the dog, and the cat; in Italy the buffalo; in Lapland the rein-deer; in Peru the lama, the pacos, and the alco; in the eastern countries, the dromedary, the camel, and various species of oxen, sheep, and goats; in the southern ones the elephant; all theseanimals have been reduced to servitude, or admitted into society; while the savage, hardly desirous of the society of his female, either fears or disdains that of other animals. Of these species, rendered domestic, it is true, not one existed in America; but if the savages, with whom it was peopled, had anciently united, and had communicated to each other the mutual aids of society, they would have rendered subservient the greatest part of the animals of that country, most of them being mild, docile, and timid, few mischievous, and scarcely any formidable. Their liberty, therefore, has been preserved solely from the weakness of man, who has little or no power without the aid of society, upon which even the multiplication of his species depends. The immense territories of the new world were but thinly inhabited; and, I believe it may be asserted, that on its first discovery, it contained not more than half the number of people that may now be reckoned in Europe. This scarcity of men allowed every other animal to multiply in abundance; every thing was favourable to their increase, and the number of individuals of each species was immense; but the number of species were comparatively few, and did not amount to more than a fourth,or a third of those of the old continent. If we reckon 200 species of animals in the known world we shall find that more than 130 of them belonged to the old continent, and less than 70 to the new; and if we except the species common to both continents, that is, such as by their natures are capable of enduring the rigours of the north, and might have passed from one to the other, there will not remain above forty species peculiar to, and natives of, America. Animated nature, therefore, is in this portion of the globe less active, less varied, and even less vigorous; for by the enumeration of the American animals we shall perceive, that not only the number of species is smaller, but that in general they are inferior in size to those of the old continent; not one animal throughout America can be compared to the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, dromedary, buffalo, tiger, lion, &c. The Tapir of Brasil is the largest of all the South American animals, and this elephant of the new world exceeds not the size of a very small mule, or a calf at six months old; with both which animals he has been compared, although he does not resemble either. The Lama is not so big as the tapir, and appears large only from the length of his neck and legs; and the Pacos is much smaller still. The Cabiai,which, next to the tapir, is the largest of the South American animals, is not bigger than a common-sized hog; he differs as much as any of the preceding from all the animals of the old continent; for although he has been called the water-hog, he has essentially different characteristics from that animal. The Tajacou is smaller than the cabiai, and has a strong external resemblance to the hog, but differs greatly in his internal conformation. Neither the tajacou, cabiai, nor the tapir, are to be found in any part of the old continent; and the same may be said of theTamanduacuacu, orOuariri, and of theOuatiriou, which we have called Ant-eaters. These last animals, the largest of which is below mediocrity, seem confined to the regions of South America. They are remarkable in having no teeth, their tongue is long and cylindrical, and their mouth is so small that they can neither bite nor hardly take hold of any thing; they can only procure subsistence by putting out their long tongue in the way of the ants, and drawing it in when loaded with them. The sloth, which is calledai, orhai, by the natives of Brasil, on account of the plaintive cry ofai, which it continually sends forth, seems likewise to be confined to the new continent. It is smaller than either of the precedingones, being not more than two feet long, and is scarcely so quick in his motion as the turtle; it has but three claws on each foot, its fore legs are longer than its hind ones, it has a very short tail, and no ears. Besides, the sloth and armadillo are the only quadrupeds, which have neither incisive nor canine teeth, but whose grinders are cylindrical, and round at the extremities, nearly like those of some cetaceous animals.
The Curiacou of Guiana is an animal of the nature and size of our largest roe-bucks; the male has horns, which he sheds every year, but the female has none. At Cayenne it is called the Hind of the Woods. There is another species, called the little cariacou, or hind of the fens, which is considerably smaller than the former, and the male has no horns. From the resemblance of the names I suspected that the cariacou of Cayenne might be the caguacu, or cougouacou-ara, of Brasil, and comparing the accounts given by Piso and Marcgrave of the latter with the cariacou I had alive, I was persuaded they were the same animal, yet so different from our roe-buck as to justify our considering them distinct species.
The tapir, cabiai, tajacou, ant-eater, sloth, cariacou, lama, pacos, bison, puma, juguar, coujuar, juguarat, and the mountain-cat, &c.are therefore the largest animals of the new continent. The middle-sized and small ones are the cuandus, or gouandous, agouti, coati, paca, opossum, cavies, and armadillos; all which I believe are peculiar to the new world, although our latest nomenclators speak of two other species of armadillos, one in the East Indies, and the other in Africa; but we have only the testimony of the author of the description of Seba’s cabinet for their existence, and that authority is insufficient to confirm the fact, for misnomers frequently happen in the collections of natural objects. An animal, for example, is purchased under the name of a Ternat, or American bat, and another under that of the East India Armadillo; they are then announced by those names in a descriptive catalogue, and are adopted by our nomenclators; but when examined more closely the American bat proves to be one of our own country, and so may the Indian or African armadillo be merely an armadillo of America.
Hitherto we have not spoken of Apes, their history requiring a particular discussion. As the wordApeis a generic term applied to a number of species, it is not surprising that it should be said they abound in the southern parts of both continents; but it is for us here to enquirewhether the apes of Asia and Africa be the same animals as those so called in America, and whether from among more than thirty species of apes, which I have examined alive, one of them is alike common to both continents.
The Satyr, Ourang-outang, or Man of the Woods, as it is indiscriminately termed, seems to differ less from man than from the ape, and is only to be found in Africa or the south of Asia. The Gibbon, whose fore legs, or arms, are as long as the whole body, even the hind legs included, is a native of the East Indies alone. Neither of these have tails. The ape, properly so termed, whose hair is greenish, with a small intermixture of yellow, has no tail, belongs to Africa, and a few other parts of the old continent, but is not to be found in the new. It is the same also with the Cynocephali-apes, of which there are two or three species; neither of them having any tails, at least they are so short as scarcely to be perceivable. All apes which are without tails, and whose muzzles, from being short, bear a strong resemblance to the face of man, are real apes; and the species above-mentioned are all natives of the old continent, and unknown in the new; from whence we may pronounce that there are no real apes in America.
The Baboon, an animal larger than the dog, and whose body is pursed up like that of the hyæna, is exceedingly different from those we have noticed, and has a short tail: it is equally endowed with inclination and powers for mischief, and is only to be met with in the desarts of the southern parts of the old continent.
Besides these without tails, or with very short ones, (which all belong to the old continent) almost all the large ones with long tails, are peculiar to Africa. There are few even of the middling size in America, but those called little long-tailed monkeys are very numerous, of which there are several species; and when we give the particular history of these animals, it will appear the American monkeys differ very much from the apes of Asia and Africa. The Maki, of which there are three or four species, has a near resemblance to the monkeys with long tails, but is another animal, and peculiar also to the old continent. All the animals, therefore, of Asia and Africa, which are known by the name of apes, are equally as strange in America as the rhinoceros or tiger; and the more we investigate this subject, the more we shall be convinced that the animals of the southern parts of one continent did not exist in the others and the few found in them must havebeen carried thither by men. Between the coasts of Brasil and Guinea, there are 500 leagues of sea; and between those of the East Indies and Peru, the distance exceeds 2000 leagues: It appears, therefore, that all those animals which from their nature are incapable of supporting cold climates, or, if supporting, cannot propagate therein, are confined on two or three sides by seas they cannot cross, and on the other by lands so cold they cannot live in them. At this one general fact, then, however singular it may at first appear, our wonder ought to cease, namely, that not one of the animals of the torrid zone of one continent, are natives of the torrid zone of the other.
ANIMALS COMMON TO BOTH CONTINENTS.
BY the preceding enumeration it appears, that not only the quadrupeds of the hot climates of Asia and Africa, but many of those in the temperate climates of Europe, are strangers in America; but we find many there of suchas can support cold and propagate their species in the regions of the north; and though there is an evident difference in them they cannot but be considered as the same animals; and this induces us to believe, they formerly passed from one continent to the other by lands still unknown, or possibly long since buried by the waves. Of the contiguity of the two northern provinces, the proof thus drawn from Natural History is a stronger confirmation than all the conjectures of speculative Geography.
The Bears of the Illinois, of Louisiana, &c. seem to be the same with ours; the former being only smaller and blacker. The stag of Canada, though smaller than ours, differs only in the superior loftiness of his horns, number of antlers, and length of his tail. The roe-buck, found in the south of Canada, and in Louisiana, is also smaller and has a longer tail than that of Europe. The Orignal is the same animal as the Elk, but not so large. The rein-deer of Lapland, the fallow-deer of Greenland, and the Caribou of Canada, appear to be one and the same animal. Brisson has indeed classed the latter with thecervus Burgundicusof Johnston, but which animal remains unknown, and possibly received that name from accident or caprice.
The hares, squirrels, hedge-hogs, otters, marmots, rats, shrew-mice, and the moles, are species which may be considered as common to both continents; though there is not one perfectly similar in America, to what it is in Europe; and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to pronounce whether they are in reality different species, or mere varieties rendered permanent by the influence of the climate.
The Beavers of Europe seem to be the same as those of Canada. These animals prefer cold countries, but can subsist and propagate in temperate ones. In the islands of the Rhone in France, there still remain a few of the number which formerly subsisted there; and they seem more desirous of avoiding a too populous than a too warm country. They never form their societies but in desarts remote from the dwellings of men; and even in Canada, which can be considered as little more than a vast desart, they have retired far from any human habitation. The Wolf and Fox are common to both continents. They are met with in all parts of North America, and of both species; there are some entirely black. Though the Weasel and Ermine frequent the cold countries of Europe, they are very rare in America, which is not the case with the pine-weasel, marten, andpole-cat. The Pine-weasel of North America seems to be the same with that of the northern parts of Europe. The Vison of Canada has a strong resemblance to our Marten; and the streaked Pole-cat of North America, is perhaps a mere variety of the European kind. The Lynx of America is, to all appearance, the same with that in Europe. Though it prefers cold countries, it lives and multiplies in temperate ones, and is seldom seen but in forests and on mountains. The Seal, or sea-calf, seems to be confined to the northern regions, and is alike to be found on the coasts of Europe and North America.
Such, with a few exceptions, are all the animals common to the old and new world; and from this number, inconsiderable as it is, we ought, perhaps, to deduct one third, whose species, though similar in appearance, may be different in reality. But admitting the identity of species, those common to both continents are very small in number, compared with those peculiar to each; and it is also evident, that such only as can bear cold, and can multiply in these climates, as well as in warm ones, are to be found in both. From which there cannot remain a doubt but that the two continents are, or have been contiguous towards the north,and that the animals common to both, found a passage over lands which at present are to us unknown. There is reason to believe, from the discoveries made by the Russians to the north of Kamtschatka, that the lands of Asia and America are contiguous, while the north of Europe appears always to have been separated from the latter by seas too considerable for any quadruped to have crossed; nevertheless, the animals of North America have a stronger resemblance to those of the northern parts of Europe than to those of the north of Asia. Neither the Argali, Sable, Mole of Siberia, nor Chinese Musk, are to be found at Hudson’s Bay, or any other north-west part of the new continent; while in the north-east parts we not only find the animals common to the north of Europe and Asia, but even such as appear to be peculiar to Europe. But it must be acknowledged, that the north-east parts of Asia are so little known that we cannot attempt to affirm, with certainty, whether the animals of the north of Europe are to be found there or not.
We have already remarked, as a striking singularity, that the animals in the southern provinces of the new continent are small, in comparison with those of the warm regions of the old; the elephant, &c. of the latter beingsome of them eight and ten times larger than the tapir, &c. of the former. And this general fact, as to size, is further corroborated, by all the animals which have been transported from Europe having become less, and also those common to both continents being much smaller in America than those of Europe. In this new world, then, there must be something in the combination of the elements, and other physical causes, which opposes the aggrandisement of animated nature; there must be obstacles to the development, and perhaps to the formation of the principles of life. Under this sky, and on this vacant land, even those which, from the benign influence of other climates, had received their full form and complete extension, lose both, and become shrivelled and diminished. These extensive regions were thinly inhabited by a few wandering savages, who, instead of acting as masters, had no authority in it: for they had no controul over either animals or elements; they had neither subjected the waves nor directed the motions of rivers, nor even cultivated the earth around them; they were themselves nothing more than animals of the first rank, mere automatons, incapable of correcting Nature, or seconding her intentions. Nature, indeed, had treatedthem more as a stepmother than as an indulgent parent, by denying to them the sentiment of love, and the eager desire to propagate their species. The American savage, it is true, is little less in stature than other men, yet that is not sufficient to form an exception to the general remark—that all animated nature is comparatively diminutive in the new continent. In the savage the organs of generation are small and feeble; he has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female; though more nimble than the European, from being habituated to running, he is not so strong; possessed of less sensibility, yet he is more timid and dastardly; he has no vivacity, no activity of soul, and that of the body is less a voluntary exercise than a necessary action occasioned by want. Satisfy his hunger and thirst and you annihilate the active principle of all his motions; and he will remain for days together in a state of stupid inactivity[B]. Needless is it to search further into the cause for the dispersed life of savages,and their aversion to society. Nature has withheld from them the most precious spark of her torch; they have no ardour for the female, and consequently no love for their fellow-creatures. Strangers to an attachment the most lively and tender, their other kindred sensations are cold and languid: to their parents and children they are little more than indifferent; with them the bands of the most intimate of all society, are feeble, nor is there the smallest connection between one family and another; of course they have no social state among them; cold in temperament, their manners are cruel, their women they treat as drudges born to labour, or rather as beasts of burthen, whom they load with all the produce of the chace, and whom they oblige, without pity or gratitude, to perform offices repugnant to their natures, and frequently beyond their strength. They have few children, and to those they pay little attention. The whole arises from one cause; they are indifferent because they are weak, and this indifference to the female is the original stain which defaces nature, prevents her from expanding, and, while it destroys the seeds of life, strikes at the root of society. Man, therefore, forms no exception; for Nature, by retrenchingthe faculty of love, has diminished him more than any other animal. Before we examine the causes of this general effect, it must be acknowledged, that although Nature has reduced all the quadrupeds of the new world, yet she has preserved the size of reptiles, and enlarged that of insects; for although there are larger lizards and larger serpents at Senegal than in South America, yet in these animals the difference is not near so great as in the quadrupeds; the largest serpent at Senegal is not twice as large as the great adder of Cayenne, whereas the elephant is ten times as big as the tapir, which is the largest animal of South America. In no part are the insect tribes so large as in South America. At Cayenne, the spiders, caterpillars, and butterflies, surpass all the insects of the old continent, not only as to size, but in richness of colours, delicacy of shades, variety of forms, number of species, and the prodigious multiplication of individuals. The toads, frogs, and other creatures of this kind, are also very large in America. Of the birds and fish we shall say nothing; for since they possess the power of migrating from one continent to the other, it would be almost impossible to distinguish which properly belongs to either, but insects and reptiles,like quadrupeds, are confined nearly to the spot in which they came into existence.
[B]Mr. Vaillant says, that the Hottentots will sleep for two or three days together, either from hunger or excess in eating; for, when hungry, indolence has suggested to them the expedient of sleeping instead of the labour of seeking for food, and that by tying a bandage round their bellies they can do so for the above space, without experiencing any consequent inconvenience.
[B]Mr. Vaillant says, that the Hottentots will sleep for two or three days together, either from hunger or excess in eating; for, when hungry, indolence has suggested to them the expedient of sleeping instead of the labour of seeking for food, and that by tying a bandage round their bellies they can do so for the above space, without experiencing any consequent inconvenience.
Let us now then enquire why, in this new world, the reptiles and insects are so large, the quadrupeds so small, and the men so cold. These effects must depend on the quality of the earth and atmosphere, on the degrees of heat and moisture, on the situation and height of mountains, on the quality of running and stagnate waters, on the extent of forests, and, in a word, on the state in which inanimate nature presents itself in that country. In the new world there is much less heat and more moisture than in the old. If we compare the heat and cold, in each degree of latitude, we shall find a very great difference; that at Quebec, which is under the same degree of latitude as Paris, the rivers are covered with ice for months in the year, and the grounds with snow several feet thick; the air, indeed, is so cold, that the birds fly off at the approach of winter, and return not till invited by the warmth of spring. This difference of heat under the same latitude in the Temperate Zone, though considerable, is perhaps less so than the difference of that under the Torrid Zone. At Senegal, we are scorched, while at Peru, situate under the same line, we enjoy the benign influence of a temperateclimate. In such a situation is the continent of America placed, and so formed, that every thing concurs to diminish the action of heat. There we find the highest mountains and greatest rivers in the known world; these mountains form a chain which seems to terminate the length of the continent towards the west, while the plains and low grounds are all situated on this side of the mountains, from whose base they extend to the sea, which separates the American from the European continents. Thus the east wind, which constantly blows between the tropics, does not reach America until it has traversed a vast extent of ocean, and has consequently been greatly cooled; and for this reason it is much less warm at Brasil and Cayenne, for example, than at Senegal and Guinea, where this east wind arrives, charged with the heat of all the burning sands and desarts which it necessarily passes in traversing both Asia and Africa.
In treating of the different colours of men, particularly negroes, it appeared to be demonstrated that the strong tincture of brown or black depends entirely on the situation of the country; that the negroes of Nigritia, and those of the west coast of Africa are the blackest, because those countries are so situated as tocontain more heat than any other part of the globe, from the east wind not reaching them until it had passed immense tracks of land; that the American Indians, under the line, are only tawny, and the Brasilians brown, though under the same latitude as the negroes, because the heat of the climate is not so great, and the east wind has been cooled with the water, and loaded with humid vapours. The clouds which intercept the sun, and the rains which refresh the earth, are periodical, and continue several months at Cayenne, and other countries of South America. The first cause renders all the east coasts of America more temperate than either Asia or Africa; this wind arriving in a cool state begins to assume a degree of heat in traversing the plains of America, but which is checked by the enormous chain of mountains of which the western part of the new continent is composed, so that it is less hot under the line at Peru and Cayenne, and the natives are of a less dark complexion. If the Cordeliers were reduced to a level with the adjacent plains, the heat would be excessive in the western territories, and there would soon be men as black at Chili and Peru, as on the western coasts of Africa. It is evident then that diminution of heat in the new continent isowing entirely to situation; and we shall now make it appear, that there is a much greater degree of moisture in America. The mountains being the most lofty of any upon the globe, and directly facing the east wind, they stop and condense the vapours of the air, and thus give rise to a number of springs, which, by their junction, form the greatest rivers in the world. In proportion, therefore, to its extent there are more running waters in the new continent than in the old, and which are augmented by their confined situations; for the natives having never checked the torrents, directed the rivers, nor drained the marshes, immense tracts of land are covered by the stagnant waters, by which the moisture of the air is increased and the heat diminished. Besides, the earth being every where covered with trees and coarse weeds, it never dries, but constantly produces humid and unwholesome exhalations. In these gloomy regions, Nature remains concealed under her old garments, never having received a new attire from the cultivation of man, but totally neglected, her productions languish, become corrupted, and are prematurely destroyed. It is principally then from the scarcity of men in America, and from most of them living like the brutes, thatthe earth has been neglected, remains cold, and is unable to produce the active principles of Nature. To develope the seeds of the largest animals and enable them to grow and multiply, requires all the heat which the sun can communicate to a fertile soil; and for a reason directly opposite it is, that insects, reptiles, and all the little animals which wallow in the mud, whose blood is watery, and whose increase depends on putrefaction, are more numerous and large in the low, humid, and marshy lands of the new continent.
When we reflect on these very striking differences between the old and new continents, we can hardly help supposing that the latter is, in fact, more recent, and has remained buried under the ocean longer than the rest of the globe; for, the enormous western mountains excepted, which seem to be monuments of the most remote antiquity, it has all the appearance of being a land newly sprung up. We find sea-shells in many places under the very first stratum of the vegetable earth, formed into masses of lime-stone, though usually less hard and compact than our free-stone. If this continent is in reality as ancient as the other, why did so few men exist on it? why were the most of that few wandering savages? why did theMexicans and Peruvians, who alone had entered into society, reckon only 200 or 300 years from the first man who taught them to assemble? why had they not reduced the lama, pacos, and other animals, by which they were surrounded, into a domestic state? As their society was in its infancy, so were their arts; their talents were imperfect, their ideas unexpanded, their organs rude, and their language barbarous. The names of their animals[C], of which we have subjoined a few as a specimen, were so difficult to pronounce, that our only astonishment is, how the Europeans should have taken the trouble to write them.
[C]Pelon ichiati oquitli—the lama.Tapiierete, in Brasil;maniporous, in Guinea—the tapir.Macatlchichiltic temamacama—the antelope of New Spain.Quauhtla coymatl—the Mexican hog.Tlacoozclotl—the mountain cat.Tlaclaughqui ocelotl, in Mexico—the jaguar.Hoitzlaquatzin—the porcupine of New Spain.Xoloitzchuintli—the Mexican wolf.
[C]Pelon ichiati oquitli—the lama.
Tapiierete, in Brasil;maniporous, in Guinea—the tapir.
Macatlchichiltic temamacama—the antelope of New Spain.
Quauhtla coymatl—the Mexican hog.
Tlacoozclotl—the mountain cat.
Tlaclaughqui ocelotl, in Mexico—the jaguar.
Hoitzlaquatzin—the porcupine of New Spain.
Xoloitzchuintli—the Mexican wolf.
Thus every circumstance seems to indicate, that the Americans were new men, or rather men who had been so long estranged from the rest of their species that they had lost all idea of the world from which they had issued; that the greatest part of the American continent was new land, unassisted by man, and in which Naturehad not had time to establish all her plans, or to display their full extent; that the men are cold and the animals diminutive, because the ardour of the former, and the largeness of the latter, depend on the heat and salubrity of the air; and that, in the course of a few centuries when the lands are cultivated, the forests cut down, the rivers confined within proper channels, and the marshes drained, this very country will become the most fruitful, healthy, and opulent in the world; as it appears already in every part which has been cultivated by man. We mean not to infer that large animals would then be produced, for the tapir and cabiai will never attain the size of the elephant or hippopotamus, but those which may be transported there will no longer diminish. By degrees man will fill up the vacuums in these immense territories, which, when discovered, were perfect desarts.
The first writers who recorded the conquests of the Spaniards, to heighten the glory of their arms exaggerated the number of their enemies; but is it possible for any reasonable man to credit that there were millions of inhabitants at Cuba and St. Domingo, when those writers admit there was neither a monarchy, a republic, nor scarcely any society among them; and that in these two neighbouringislands, situated at but a little distance from the continent, there were only five species of animals, the largest of which was not bigger than a rabbit? Than this fact, as affirmed by Laet, Acosta, and Father du Tertre, in their different histories, no stronger proof can be adduced of the empty and desart state of this new-discovered world.
M. Fabry, who travelled for fifteen months over the western parts of America, beyond the Mississippi, assured me that he sometimes did not meet a single man for the space of 300 or 400 leagues; and all our officers who went from Quebec to the Ohio, and from that river to Louisiana, agree that it is not uncommon to travel upwards of 100 leagues without seeing a single family of savages. From these testimonies it is plain, that the most agreeable countries of this new continent were little better than desarts; but what is more immediately necessary to our purpose, they prove that we should distrust the evidence of our nomenclators, who set down in their catalogues animals as belonging to the new world which solely belong to the old, and others as native of particular districts where in fact they never existed; and in the same manner they have classed some animals as natives of the old world, which belong exclusively to America.
I do not pretend to affirm positively that none of the animals which inhabit the warm climates are not common to both. To be physically certain of this it is necessary they should have been seen; but it is evident, with respect to the large animals of America, that none of them are to be found in the old continent, and very few of the small ones. Besides, allowing there to be some exceptions, they must relate to a trifling number of species, and in no degree affect the general rule which I intend to establish, and which seems to me to be our only certain guide to the knowledge of animals. This rule, which leads us to judge of them as much by climate and disposition as from figure and conformation, will seldom be found wrong, and it will enable us to avoid and discover a multitude of errors. If, for example, we mean to describe the hyæna of Arabia, we may safely affirm that it does not exist in Lapland; but we will not say with Brisson, and some others, that the hyæna and the glutton are the same animal; nor with Kolbe, that the crossed-fox, which inhabits the northern parts of the new continent, is found at the Cape of Good Hope, as the animal he mentions is not a fox, but a jackall. But it is not my object at present to point out all the errors of nomenclators; my intention is solelyto prove that their blunders would have been less had they paid some attention to the differences of climates; if the history of animals had been so far studied as to discover, which I have done, that those of the southern parts of each continent are never found in both; and lastly, if they had abstained from generic names, which have confounded together a number of species, not only different, but even remote from each other.
The true business of a nomenclator is not to enlarge his list, but to form rational comparisons in order to contract it. Nothing can be more easy than, by perusing all the authors on animals, and by selecting their names and phrases, to form a table which however will always be long, in proportion as the enquiry is superficial; while nothing can be more difficult than to compare them with that judgment and discernment which is necessary to reduce that table to its proper dimensions. I said before, and now repeat, that in the whole known part of the globe there are not above 200 species of quadrupeds, including among them 40 species of apes. To each of these, therefore, we had only to appropriate a name; and to retain 200 names, only a very moderate exertion of memory is required; for what purpose then are quadrupeds formed into classesand genera, which are nothing more than props to serve the memory in the recollection of plants, which are so very numerous, and often so very similar. But instead of a list of 200 quadrupeds we have volumes heaped upon volumes full of intricate names and phrases. Why introduce an unintelligible jargon, when we may be understood by pronouncing a simple name? Why change terms merely to form classes? When a dozen animals are included under the name, for example, ofthe Rabbit, why is the Rabbit itself omitted, and must be sought for under the genus ofthe Hare? Is it not absurd and ridiculous to form classes in which the most remote genera are assembled together; to put in the first, for example, man and the bat; the elephant and scaly lizard in the second; the lion and ferret in the third; the hog and the mole in the fourth; and the rhinoceros and the rat in the fifth? Ideas so vague and ill-conceived can never maintain their ground. These works are destroyed by their own authors, one edition contradicting another, and neither of them approved but by children, or by such as are always the dupes of mystery, mistaking the appearance of method for the reality of science. By comparing the fourth edition of Linnæus’s Systema Naturæ with the tenth, we find man is no longerclassed with the bat, but with the scaly lizard; that the elephant, hog, and rhinoceros, instead of being classed as before with the scaly lizard, mole, and rat, are all three huddled together with the shrew-mouse. In the former he had reduced all quadrupeds to five classes, but in the latter he divides them into seven. From these alterations we may form some idea of those introduced among the genera, and how the species have been jumbled and confounded. According to the same author there are two species[D]of men, the man of day and the man of night, and that these are so very distinct that they ought not to be regarded as varieties of the same species. Is not this adding fable to absurdity? and were it not better to remain silent with respect to matters of which we are ignorant, than to found essential characters, and general distinctions upon the grossest error? But to whatever length criticisms of this kind might be extended, I shall proceed no farther, especially as it does not form my principal object, having already said enough to put every reader on his guard, against the general as well as particular errors which abound so much in the works of nomenclators.
[D]Homo diurnus sapiens; homo nocturnus trogloditus.
[D]Homo diurnus sapiens; homo nocturnus trogloditus.
In drawing general conclusions, from what has been advanced, we shall find that man is the only animated being in whose nature there is sufficient strength, genius, and flexibility, to subsist and multiply in all the different climates of the earth. It is evident that no other animal possesses this grand privilege, for, far from being able to multiply in every part of the globe, most of them are confined to certain climates, and even particular districts. In every respect man is the work of heaven, while many animals are the mere creatures of the earth. These of one continent exist not on another, and if there are a few exceptions, they are so changed and diminished as hardly to be known. Can a stronger proof be given that the impression of their form is not unalterable? that their nature, less permanent than that of man, may in time be varied, and even absolutely changed? that from the same cause those species which are least perfect, least active, and furnished with the fewest engines of defence, as well as the most delicate and the most cumbrous, have already, or will disappear, for their very existence depends on the form which man gives to the surface of the earth, or permits it to retain.
The prodigious Mammoth, whose enormous bones I have often viewed with astonishment, and which were at least six times bigger than those of the largest elephant, exists no longer; although its remains have been found in Ireland, Siberia, Louisiana, and other places remote from each other. Of all species of quadrupeds this was certainly the largest and strongest, and since it has disappeared, how many smaller, weaker, and less remarkable, must have perished, without having left any evidence of their past existence? How many others have been improved or degraded by the great vicissitude of the earth and waters, by the culture or neglect of nature, by their long continuance in favourable or repugnant climates, that they are no longer the same! and yet, next to man, quadrupeds are beings whose nature is most fixed, and whose form most permanent. Birds and fishes vary more: those of insects are subject to greater variations still; and if we descend to plants, which ought not to be excluded from animated nature, we shall be astonished at the celerity and facility with which they vary and assume new forms.
It may not be impossible, then, without inverting the order of nature, that all the animals of the new world originated from the samestock as those of the old; that having been afterwards separated by immense seas or impassable lands, they, in course of time, underwent all the effects of a climate which was new to them, and which must also have had its qualities changed by the very causes which produced its separation; and that they, in consequence, became not only inferior in size, but different in nature. But these circumstances, if true, ought not to prevent us from considering them now as animals of different species. From whatever causes these changes may have proceeded, whether produced by time, climate, or soil, or whether originating with the creation, they are not the less real. Nature is, indeed, in a perpetual fluctuation. It is sufficient for man to watch her in his own time, to look a little backward and forward, by way of forming a conjecture of what she might have been formerly and what she may hereafter be.
As to the utility to be derived from this comparison of animals, it is evident, that independent of correcting the errors of our nomenclators, our knowledge of the animal creation will be enlarged, rendered less imperfect and more certain; that we shall be in less hazard of attributing to American animals, properties which belong to those of the East Indies, because they may have the same name; that in treating of foreign animals, from accounts given by travellers, we shall be more able to distinguish names and facts, and to refer them to their true species; and, in fine, that the history in which we are now engaged will be less erroneous, and perhaps more luminous and complete.
Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.
FIG. 102.Black Cougar
FIG. 101.Tiger
THE TIGER.
IN the class of carnivorous animals, the lion stands foremost, and he is immediately followed by the tiger, who, possessing all the bad qualities of the former, is a stranger to his good ones. To pride, courage, and strength, the lion adds dignity, clemency, and generosity, while the tiger is ferocious without provocation and cruel without necessity. Thus it is throughout all nature where rank proceeds from the superiority of strength. The first class, sole master of all, are less tyrannical than their immediate inferiors, who, denied unlimited authority, abuse those powers which they possess;thus the tiger is more to be dreaded than the lion. The latter often forgets that he is the sovereign, or strongest of animals; with an even pace he traverses the plains and forests; man he attacks not unless provoked, nor animals but when goaded by hunger. The tiger, on the contrary, though glutted with carnage, has still an insatiate thirst for blood; his rancour has no intervals. With indiscriminate fury he tears in pieces every animal he comes near, and destroys with the same ferocity a fresh animal as he had done the first. Thus he is the scourge of every country he inhabits; and of the appearance of man or his weapons, he is fearless. He will destroy whole flocks of domestic animals if he meets with them, and all the wild animals that come in his way. He attacks the young elephant and rhinoceros, and will sometimes brave the lion himself.
The form of the body usually corresponds with the nature and disposition. The noble air of the lion, the height of his limbs in exact proportion to the length of his body, his large thick mane, which covers his shoulders and shades his face, his determined aspect, and solemn pace, seem to announce the dignity and majestic intrepidity of his nature. The tiger has a body too long, limbs disproportionallyshort, naked head, and haggard eyes; strong characteristics of desperate malice and insatiable cruelty. He has no instinct but an uniform rage, a blind fury, so undistinguishing that he not unoften devours his own progeny, and even tears the dam in pieces if she offers to defend them. Would he were to gratify his thirst for blood to its utmost, and by destroying them at their birth extinguish the whole race of monsters which he produces!
Happy is it for other animals that the species of tiger is not numerous, and that it is chiefly confined to the warmest provinces of the East. They are found in Malabar, Siam, Bengal, and in all the countries inhabited by the elephant and rhinoceros. It is, indeed, said, that they accompany the latter for the purpose of eating their dung, which serves to purge them. Be this as it may, they are often seen together at the sides of lakes and rivers, where they are probably compelled to go by thirst, having often occasion for water to cool that fervor they so constantly endure. It is also a convenient situation to surprise his victims, since the heat of the climate compels all animals to seek for water several times a day; here he chooses his prey, or rather multiplies his massacres, for havingkilled one animal, he often proceeds to the destruction of others, tearing open their bodies, and swallowing their blood by long draughts; for which their thirst seems never to be appeased.
When, however, he has killed a large animal, as a horse, or buffalo, he does not devour it on the spot, for fear of being disturbed, but drags it off to the forest, which he does with such ease, that the swiftness of his course seems scarcely retarded by the enormous load which he trails after him. From this circumstance we might judge of his strength, but we shall have a more just idea of it by considering his bodily dimensions. Some travellers have compared him for size to the horse, others to the buffalo, and others merely say he is larger than the lion; but we have accounts more recent, which deserve the utmost confidence. I have been assured by M. de la Lande-Magon that he saw a tiger in the East-Indies fifteen feet long; allowing that he includes the tail, and granting four feet for that, the body would still be more than ten. It is true that the skin preserved in the Royal Cabinet of France is not more than seven feet from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail; but this tiger had been taken very young, and was afterwards alwaysconfined in a very narrow apartment, where the want of exercise, and space to range in, restraint and, perhaps, not having proper nourishment, not only its life might have been shortened, but the growth of its body prevented. From the dissection of animals of every species that have been reared in houses or court-yards, we find that their bodies and members for want of exercise, never attain their natural dimensions, and that the organs which are not used as those of generation, are so little expanded as to be scarcely perceivable.
The difference of climate alone is capable of producing the same effects as confinement and want of exercise. None of the animals of hot countries produce in cold ones, even though well fed, and at full liberty; and as reproduction is a natural consequence of full nutrition, it is evident that when the former does not operate the latter must be incomplete; and that, in such animals, cold of itself is sufficient to restrain the powers of the internal mould, and to diminish the growth, since it destroys the active faculties of reproduction. It is not, therefore, surprising that the tiger above alluded to should not have acquired its natural growth; yet from a bare view of its stuffed skin, and an examination of its skeleton,we may form an idea of its formidable strength as an animal. Upon the bones of the legs there are inequalities which denote muscular ligatures stronger than those of the lion. These bones are also to the full as strong, though shorter; and, as already intimated, the height of the tiger’s legs bear no proportion to the length of his body. Thus that velocity which Pliny ascribes to him and which the wordtigerseems to imply, ought not to be understood of his ordinary movements, or the celerity of his continued course; for it is evident, that as his legs are short and he can neither walk nor run so fast as those animals which have them proportionally longer; but this prodigious swiftness, may with great propriety, be applied to the extraordinary bounds he is capable of making without any particular effort, for if we suppose him to have the same strength and agility in proportion with the cat, which he greatly resembles in conformation, and which in an instant will leap several feet, we must allow that the bounds of a tiger, whose body is ten times as large, must be immense. It is not, therefore, the quickness of his running, but of his leaping that Pliny meant to denote, and which from the impossibility of evading, when he has made a spring, still renders him more formidable.
The tiger is, perhaps, the only animal whose spirit cannot be subdued. Neither force nor restraint, violence nor flattery, can prevail, in the least, on his stubborn Nature. He is equally indignant at the gentle and harsh usage of his keeper; and time instead of mollifying his disposition, only serves to increase his fierceness and malignity. With equal wrath he snaps at the hand that feeds as that which chastises him. He roars at the sight of every object which lives, and seems to consider all as his proper prey; he seems to devour beforehand with a look, menacing it with the grinding of his teeth, and, regardless of his chains, makes efforts to dart upon it, as if to shew his malignity when incapable of exerting his force.
To complete the idea of the strength of this terrible animal we shall quote Father Tachard’s account of a combat between a tiger and three elephants, at Siam, of which he was an eye-witness; he says, “a lofty palisade of bamboo cane was built, about a hundred feet square, into which inclosure three elephants were introduced, for the purpose of fighting a tiger. Their heads, and part of their trunks, were covered with a kind of armour like a mask. As soon as we arrived at the place a tiger wasbrought forth, of a size much larger than any we had seen before; he was not at first let loose, but held by two cords, so that he could not make a spring; one of the elephants approached and gave him three or four blows on the back with his trunk, with such force as to beat him to the ground, where he lay for some time without motion, as if he had been dead, although this first attack had greatly abated his fury, he was no sooner untied, and at liberty, than he gave a loud roar, and made a spring at the elephant’s trunk, which was stretched out to strike him; but the elephant drew up his trunk with great dexterity, received the tiger upon his tusks, and tossed him up into the air. This so discouraged him that he no more ventured to approach the elephant, but made several turns round the palisade, making several efforts to spring at the spectators. Shortly after a second, and then a third elephant was set against him, each of which gave him such blows that he once more lay for dead, and they certainly would have killed him had not an end been put to the combat.” From this account we may form some idea of the strength and ferocity of the tiger; for this animal, though young, and not arrived at his full growth, though reduced to captivity, and held by cords,yet he was so formidable to three such enormous foes, that it was thought necessary to protect those parts of their bodies which were not defended by impenetrable skin.
The tiger, of which an anatomical description was made by the Jesuits at China, and communicated by Father Gouie to the Academy of Sciences, seemed to be the true species,[E]as does also that which the Portuguese have distinguished by the name of Royal Tiger. Dellon expressly says, in his Travels, that tigers abound more in Malabar than in any other part of the East Indies; that their species are numerous, but that the largest, which is as big as a horse, and called by the Portuguese the Royal Tiger, is very rare. To all appearance, then, the Royal Tiger is not a different species; he is found in the East Indies only; and, notwithstanding what has been said by Brisson, and others, is an utter stranger at Brasil. I am even inclined to think that the real tiger is peculiar to Asia, and the inland parts of the south of Africa; for though the generality of travellers, who have frequented the African coasts,speak of tigers as very common, yet it is very plain, from their own accounts of them, that they are either leopards, panthers, or ounces. Dr. Shaw says, that the lion and panther hold the first rank at Tunis and Algiers, and that in those parts of Barbary the tiger is an animal unknown. This observation seems founded in truth, for they were Indian, and not African, ambassadors, who presented Augustus, while at Samos, the first tiger the Romans had ever seen; and it was also from the Indies that Heliogabalus procured those tigers, with which, in order to represent the god Bacchus, he proposed that his car should be drawn.