Buffon's Natural History. Volume 07 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c

Barr’s Buffon.

Buffon’s Natural History.

CONTAINING

A THEORY OF THE EARTH,
A GENERAL
HISTORY OF MAN,
OF THE BRUTE CREATION, AND OF
VEGETABLES, MINERALS,
&c. &c.

FROM THE FRENCH.
WITH NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.
IN TEN VOLUMES.
VOL. VII.

PRINTED FOR THE PROPRIETOR,
AND SOLD BY H. D. SYMONDS, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1807.
T. Gillet, Printer, Wild-court.

CONTENTS
OF
THE SEVENTH VOLUME.

Of Carnivorous Animals.

Directions for placing the Plates in the Seventh Volume.

BUFFON’S

NATURAL HISTORY.

[OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS.]

[OF TIGERS.]

As the word Tiger is a generic name, given several animals of different species, it is proper to begin with distinguishing them from each other. Leopards and Panthers have often been confounded together, and are called Tigers by most travellers. The Ounce, a small species of Panther, which is easily tamed, and used by the Orientals in the chace, has been taken for the Panther itself, and described as such by the name of Tiger. The Lynx, and that called the Lion’s provider, have also sometimes received the name of Panther, and sometimes Ounce. In Africa, and in the southern parts of Asia, these animals are common; but the real tiger, and the only one which ought to be so called, is scarce, was little known by the ancients, and is badly described by the moderns. Aristotle does not mention him; and Pliny merely speaks of him as an animal of prodigious velocity; tremendæ velocitatis animal;[A] adding, that he was a much more scarce animal than the Panther, since Augustus presented the first to the Romans at the dedication of the theatre of Marcellus, while so early as the time of Scaurus, this Ædile sent 150 panthers, and afterwards 400 were given by Pompey, and 420 by Augustus, to the public shews at Rome. Pliny, however, gives no description of the tiger, or any of its characteristics. Oppian and Solinus appear to be the first who observed that the tiger is marked with long streaks, and the panther with round spots. This, indeed, is one of the characteristics which distinguishes the true tiger from a number of animals that have been so called. Strabo, in speaking of the real tiger, gives Megasthenes as his authority, for saying that in India there are tigers twice as large as the lion. The tiger then stands described by the ancients as an animal that is fierce and swift, marked with long stripes, and exceeding the lion in size; nor has Gesner, nor the other modern naturalists, who have treated of the tiger, added any thing to these observations of the ancients.

[A] Pliny Nat. Hist. lib. viii. cap. xviii.

In the French language all those skins of which the hair is short, and are marked with round and distinct spots, are called tiger-skins, and travellers sharing in this error, have called all animals so marked by the general name of tigers; even the academy of sciences have been borne away by this torrent, and have adopted the appellation to all, although by dissection they found them materially different.

The most general cause, as we intimated in the article of the lion, of these ambiguous terms in Natural History, arose from the necessity of giving names to the unknown productions of the New World, and thus the animals were called after such of the old continent to whom they had the smallest resemblance. From the general denomination of tiger to every animal whose skin was spotted, instead of one species of that name, we now have nine or ten, and consequently the history of these animals is exceedingly embarrassed, writers have applied to one species what ought to have been ascribed to another.

To dispel the confusion which necessarily results from these erroneous denominations, particularly among those which have been commonly called tigers, I have resolved to give a comparative enumeration of quadrupeds, in which I shall distinguish, 1. Those which are peculiar to the old continent, and were not found in America when first discovered. 2. Those which are natives of the new continent, and were unknown in the old. 3. Those which existing alike in both continents, without having been carried from one to the other by man, may be considered as common to both. For which purpose it has been necessary to collect and arrange the scattered accounts given by the historians of America, and those who first visited this continent as travellers.

[ANIMALS OF THE OLD CONTINENT.]

AS the largest animals are the best known, and about which there is the least uncertainty, in this enumeration they shall follow nearly according to their size.

Elephants belong to the Old World; the largest are found in Asia, and the smallest in Africa. They are natives of the hottest climates, and, though they will live, they cannot multiply in temperate ones; they do not propagate even in their own countries after they are deprived of their liberty. Though confined to the southern parts of the old continent their species is numerous. It is unknown in America, nor is there any animal there that can be compared to it in size and figure. The same remark applies to the Rhinoceros, which is less numerous than the elephant; he is confined to the desarts of Africa, and the forests of southern Asia; nor has America any animal that resembles him.

The Hippopotamus inhabits the banks of the large rivers of India and Africa, and is less numerous than the Rhinoceros. It is not found in America, nor even in the temperate climates of the Old Continent.

The Camel and Dromedary, so apparently similar, yet in reality so dissimilar, are very common in Asia and Arabia, and in all the eastern parts of the ancient continent. The name of camel has been given to the Lama and Pacos of Peru, which are so different from the camel as by some to have been called sheep, and by others camels of Peru; though the pacos has nothing in common with the European sheep but the wool, and the lama resembles the camel only by the length of its neck. The Spaniards formerly carried camels to Peru; they left them first at the Canaries, whence they afterwards transported them to America; but the climate of the new world does not seem favourable to them, for though they produced, their numbers have always remained very small.

The Giraffe or Camelopard, an animal remarkable for its height, and the length of its neck and fore legs, is a native of Africa, particularly Ethiopia, and has never spread beyond the tropics in the temperate climates of the old continent.

In the preceding article we have seen that the lion exists not in America, and that the puma of Peru is an animal of a different species; and we shall now find that the tiger and panther belong also to the old continent, and that the animals of South America, to whom those names have been applied, are also different. The real tiger is a terrible animal, and more, perhaps, to be dreaded than the lion himself. His ferocity is beyond comparison; but an idea of his strength may be drawn from his size; he is generally from four to five feet high, and from nine to fourteen in length, without including his tail; his skin is not covered with round spots, but with black stripes upon a yellow ground, which extend across the body, and form rings from one end of the tail to the other. These characteristics alone are sufficient to distinguish him from all the animals of prey belonging to the new continent, as the largest of them scarcely ever exceed the size of our mastiffs. The leopard and panther of Africa and Asia, though much smaller than the tiger, are larger than the rapacious animals of South America. Pliny, whose testimony cannot be doubted (since panthers were daily exposed, in his time, at the theatres in Rome), indicates their essential characteristics, by saying, their hair is whitish, diversified throughout with black spots, like eyes, and that the only difference between the male and female were the superior whiteness of her hair.

The American animals, which have been called tigers, have a greater resemblance to the panther, and yet their difference from that species is very evident. The first is the Jaguara, or Janowra, a native of Guiana, Brasil, and other parts of South America. Ray, with some propriety, calls the animal the Pard, or Brasilian lynx. The Portuguese call him Ounce, because they had first, by corruption, given that name to the lynx, and afterwards to the small panther of India; and the French, without his having the smallest affinity, have called him tiger. He differs from the panther in size, in the position and figure of the spots, in the colour and length of the hair, which is frizzled when young, and never so straight as that of the panther, differing also in disposition, being more savage, and cannot be tamed; still, however, the jaguar of Brasil resembles the panther more than any other animal of the new world. The second we call Cougar, by contracting the Brasilian name cougouacou-ara, and which the French, with still less propriety, have called the Red Tiger. From the real tiger it differs in all, and from the panther in most respects, its hair being red, and without spots; and in the form of its head, and length of his muzzle, it differs also from them both. A third species, which has also been called tiger, though equally remote, is the Jaguarette, which is nearly of the size of the jaguar, and resembles him in natural habits, but differs in some exterior characters. He has been called black tiger, because his hair is black, interspersed with spots of a still blacker hue. Besides these three species, and perhaps a fourth, which is smaller, that have been named after the tiger, there is another American animal, which appears to have a greater right to it, namely, the Cat-pard, or mountain cat, which resembles both the cat and the panther. Though smaller than either of the above three animals, it is larger than the wild cat, which it resembles in figure, but its tail is much shorter, and it differs also by having its hair diversified with black spots, long upon the back and round upon the belly. These four American animals have, therefore, very improperly been named tigers. The cougar and cat-pard I have seen alive, and am convinced they are of different species, and still more so from the tiger or panther; and as for the puma and jaguar, it is evident, from the testimony of those who have seen them, that the former is not a lion, nor the latter a tiger, and therefore, without scruple, we may pronounce, that neither the lion, tiger, nor even the panther, exist in America, any more than the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, camel, or the camelopard. All these species require a hot climate for propagation, and as none of them exist in the northern regions, it is impossible they should have had any communication with America. This general fact is too important not to be supported by every proof; we shall, therefore, continue our comparative enumeration of the animals of the old continent with those of the new.

It is generally known, that upon horses being first transported into America they struck the natives with surprise and terror; and that this animal has thriven and multiplied so fast, as to have become almost as numerous there now as it is in Europe. It is the same also with the ass, which has thriven equally in these warm climates, and from which mules have been produced, that are more serviceable than the lamas for carrying heavy loads over the mountainous parts of Chili and Peru. The Zebra is also an animal of the old continent, and which, perhaps, has never been even seen in the new; it seems to require a particular climate, and is found only in that part of Africa which lies between the Equator and the Cape of Good Hope.

Oxen were unknown in the islands and on the continent of South America. Soon after the discovery of these countries, the Spaniards transported bulls and cows to them from Europe. In 1550 oxen were employed, for the first time, in tilling the ground in the valley of Cusco. On the continent these animals multiplied prodigiously, as well as in the islands of St. Domingo, Cuba, Barlovento, &c. and in many places they even became wild. The species of horned cattle found at Mexico, Louisiana, &c. which is called the wild ox or Bison, is not produced from the European oxen. The bison existed in America before our race was carried thither; and from the latter he is so different as to authorize the opinion of his being a different species. He has a rise between his shoulders, his hair is softer than wool, is longer before than behind, is curled upon the neck and along the spine of the back; he is of a brown colour, and faintly marked with some whitish spots; he has also short legs, which, like the head and neck, are covered with long hair; and the male has a long tail with a tuft of hair at the end, like that of the lion. These differences seem to be sufficient grounds for considering the ox and bison of different species, yet I will not pretend to determine they are so, because the only characteristic which identifies animals to be of the same species, is their propagating and producing similar individuals, and which fact has never been determined between the bison and the oxen of Europe. M. de la Nux, a member of the royal council of the isle of Bourbon, has favoured me with a letter, in which he says, the hunched-back ox of that island propagates with the common horned cattle; and of great advantage would it be, if persons who live in remote countries would follow the example of this gentleman, in making experimental observations upon animals. Nothing could be more easy than for the inhabitants of Louisiana, to try if the American bison would copulate with the European cow. It is probable they would produce together, and in that case it would be ascertained that the European ox, the hunched-backed species of the isle of Bourbon, the East India bull and American bison, form only one species. M. de la Nux proved by experiments, that the hunch is not an essential characteristic, since it disappeared after a few generations; and I have myself discovered that the protuberance upon a camel’s back, which, though as in the bison, is very common, is not a constant characteristic, and is probably owing to the healthful state of the body, as I once saw a sickly camel which had not the smallest appearance of a lump. As to the other difference, namely, the hair being more long and soft, that may be entirely owing to the influence of the climate, as is the case with goats, hares, and rabbits. With some appearance of probability, it may be supposed, (especially if the American bison produces with the European cow) that our oxen may have found a passage over the northern districts to those of North America, and having afterwards advanced into the temperate regions of this New World, they received the impressions of the climate, and in time became bisons. But till the essential fact of their producing together be fully confirmed, I think it right to conclude that our oxen belong to the old continent, and existed not in America before they were carried thither.

To sheep America has no pretensions; they were transported from Europe, and have thriven both in the warm and temperate climates; but, however prolific, they are commonly more meagre, and their flesh less juicy and tender than those in Europe. Brasil seems to be the most favourable to them, as it is there alone that they are found loaded with fat. Guinea sheep, as well as European, have been transported to Jamaica, and they have prospered equally well. These two species belong solely to the old continent. It is also the same with goats, and those we now meet with in America in such great numbers, all originated from goats introduced from Europe. The latter has not, however, multiplied so fast at Brasil as the sheep. When the Spaniards first carried goats to Peru they were so rare as to be sold for 110 ducats a piece; but afterwards they multiplied so prodigiously as to be held of little value but for their skins; they produce there from three to five kids at a time, while in Europe they seldom have more than one or two. In all the islands they are equally numerous as on the continent. The Spaniards transported them even into the islands of the South Sea; and in the island of Juan Fernandez their increase became prodigious. But proving a supply of provisions to the free-booters who afterwards infested those parts, the Spaniards resolved to extirpate them, and for that purpose put dogs upon the island, who, multiplying in their turn, not only destroyed all the goats in the accessible parts, but became so fierce as to attack even men.

The hogs which were transported from Europe to America succeeded better, and multiplied faster, than the sheep or goat. The first swine, according to Garcilasso, sold still dearer than the first goats. Piso says the flesh of the ox and sheep is not so good at Brasil as in Europe, but that of the hog, which multiplies very fast, is better; and Laet, in his History of the New World, affirms that it is preferable at St. Domingo, to what it is in Europe. In general it may be remarked, that of all domestic animals which have been carried from Europe to America, the hog has thriven the best and most universally. In Canada and in Brasil, which includes the warmest and coldest climates of the new world, hogs multiply, and their flesh is equally good; while the goat, on the contrary, multiplies in warm and temperate climates only, and cannot maintain its species in Canada without continual supplies. The ass multiplies in Brasil, Peru, &c. but not in Canada, where neither mules nor asses are to be seen, although numbers of the latter have been transported thither in couples. Horses have multiplied nearly as much in the hot as in the cold countries throughout America; but have diminished in size, a circumstance which is common to all animals transported from Europe to America; and what is still more singular, all the native animals of America are much smaller in general than those of the old continent. Nature in their formation seems to have adopted a smaller scale, and to have formed man alone in the same mould. But to proceed in our enumeration:—The hog, then, is not a native of America, but was carried thither; and he has not only increased in a domestic state but has even become wild, and multiplied in the woods without the assistance of man. A species of hog has also been transported from Guinea to Brasil, which has likewise multiplied; it is much smaller, and seems to form a distinct species from the European hog; for although the climate of Brasil is favourable to every kind of propagation, these animals have never been known to intermingle.

Dogs, whose races are so varied, and so numerously diffused, were not found in America, unless in a few rude resemblances, which it is difficult to compare with the species at large. At St. Domingo, says Garcilasso, there were little animals called gosques, not unlike little dogs; but there were no dogs like those of Europe. He adds, that the latter, on being transported to Cuba and St. Domingo, had become wild, and diminished the number of cattle which had become wild also; that they committed their devastations in troops of ten or twelve, and were more destructive than wolves. According to Joseph Acosta, there were no real dogs in the West Indies, but only an animal resembling small dogs, called by the Peruvians alcos, which attach themselves to their masters, and seem to have nearly the same dispositions as the dog. If we may believe Father Charlevoix, who quotes no authority, “The goschis of St. Domingo were little mute dogs, which served as an amusement to the ladies, and were also employed in the chace of other animals. Their flesh was good for eating, and they were of great benefit to the Spaniards during the first famines, which these people experienced, so that they would have been exhausted, had there not been numbers of them afterwards brought from the continent. Of this animal there were several sorts; of some the hair was straight, others had their bodies covered with a wool exceedingly soft; but the greatest number had only a thin covering of tender down. In colours they exceeded the varieties in the European dogs, forming an assemblage of all colours, the most lively not excepted.”

If this species of the goschis ever existed, especially as described by Father Charlevoix, why have other authors never mentioned it? why does it no longer exist? or if in existence, by what means has it lost all its beautiful peculiarities? It is most likely that the goschis of Charlevoix, and of which he never found the name but in Father Pers, is the gosques of Garcilasso; and it is also probable that these gosques of St. Domingo, and the alcos of Peru, are the same animal; for certain it is, that of all American animals this has the most affinity to the European dog. Several authors have considered it as a real dog; and Laet expressly says, that when the West Indies were discovered they in St. Domingo employed a small dog in hunting, but which was absolutely dumb. We observed, in the history of the dog, that he loses the faculty of barking in hot countries, but instead thereof they had a kind of howl, and are not like these American animals, perfectly mute. European dogs have thriven equally well in the hot and cold climates of America, and of all animals they are held in the highest estimation by the savages; but they have undergone essential changes, for in hot countries they have lost their voice, in cold ones they have decreased in size, and in general their ears have become straight. Thus they have degenerated, or rather returned to their primitive species, the shepherd’s dog, whose ears are erect, and who barks the least. From whence we may conclude, that the dog belongs to the old continent where their nature has been developed in the temperate regions only, and where they appear to have been varied and brought to perfection by the care of man, for in all uncivilized countries, and in very hot or cold climates they are ugly, small, and almost mute.

The Hyæna, which is nearly the size of the wolf, was known to the ancients, and I have myself seen a living one. It is remarkable for having an opening between the anus and tail, like the badger, and from which issues a humour that has a strong smell; also for a long bristly mane which runs along its neck; and for a voracity which prompts it to scrape up graves and devour the most putrid bodies.

This horrid animal is only to be found in Arabia, and other southern provinces of Asia; it does not exist in Europe and has never been found in the New World.

The jackall, which of all animals not excepting the wolf makes the nearest approach to the dog though differing in every essential characteristic, is very common in Armenia and Turkey, and is very numerous in several other provinces of Asia and Africa; but it is absolutely unknown in the new world. It is about the size of the fox, and of a very brilliant yellow; this animal has not extended to Europe, nor even the northern parts of Asia.

The Genet, being a native of Spain, would doubtless have been noticed had he been found in America, but that not being the case, we may consider him as peculiar to the old continent; he inhabits the southern parts of Europe, and those of Asia under the same latitude.

Though it has been said the Civet was found in New Spain, I am of opinion it was not the African, or Indian Civet, which yields the musk that is mixed and prepared with that of the animal called the Hiam of China; this civet I conceive to belong to the southern part of the old continent, has never extended to the north, and consequently would not have found a passage to the New World.

Cats as well as dogs were entire strangers to the New Continent, and though I formerly mentioned that a huntsman had taken to Columbus a cat which he had killed in the woods of America, I am now convinced that the species did not then exist there. I was then less aware of the abuses which had been made in names, and I acknowledge I am not yet sufficiently acquainted with animals to distinguish them with precision in the fictitious and misapplied denominations given them by travellers. Nor is this to be wondered at, since the nomenclators, whose researches were directed to this object, have rendered it more dark and intricate by their arbitrary names and arrangements. To the natural propensity of comparing things which we see for the first time, with those already known, and the almost insuperable difficulty of pronouncing the American names being added, we are to impute this misapplication of names which have since been productive of so many errors. It is much more easy, for example, to call a new animal, a wild boar, than to pronounce its name at Mexico, quab-coya-melt; to call another American fox, than to retain its Brasilian appellation, tamandua-guacu; to give the name of Peruvian sheep, or camel, to those animals which in the language of Peru are called pelon ichiath oquitli. It is the same with almost all the other animals of the New World, whose names were so strange and barbarous to the Europeans, that they endeavoured to apply others to them, from the resemblance they had to those of the old continent, but they were often from affinities too remote to justify the application. Five or six species of small animals were named hares, or rabbits, merely because their flesh was palatable food. They called cow and elk an animal without horns, although it had no affinity to either, except a small resemblance in the form of the body. But it is unnecessary at present to dwell upon the false denominations which have been applied to the animals of America, because I shall endeavour to point out and correct them when we come to treat of each of those animals in particular.

We find, then, that all our domestic animals, and the largest animals of Asia and Africa were unknown in the New World; and the same remark extends to several of the less considerable species, of which we shall now proceed to make a cursory mention.

The gazelles, of which there are various kinds, and of which some belong to Arabia, others to the East Indies, and some to Africa, all require a hot climate to subsist and multiply, they therefore never extended to the northern climates, so as to obtain a passage to America; it appears, indeed, that the African gazelle, and which Hernandes, in his History of Mexico calls algazel ex Aphrica must have been transported thither. The animal of New Spain, which the same author calls temamaçame, Seba cervus, Klein tragulus, and Brisson the gazelle of New Spain, appears to be a different species to any on the old continent.

It is natural to conclude, that the Chamois Goat, which delights in the snow of the Alps, would not be afraid of the icy regions of the north, and thence might have passed to America, but no such animal is found there. This animal requires not only a particular climate, but a particular situation. He is attached to the tops of the Alpine, Pyrenean, and other lofty mountains, and far from being scattered over distant countries, he never descends even to the plains at the bottom of his hills; but in this he is not singular, as the marmot, wild goat, bear, and lynx, are also mountain animals, and very rarely found in the plains.

The buffalo is a native of hot countries, and has been rendered domestic in Italy; he resembles less than the ox, the American bison, and is unknown in the new continent. The wild goat is found on the tops of the highest mountains of Europe and Asia, but was never seen on the Cordeliers. The Musk-animal, which is nearly the size of a fallow-deer, inhabits only a few particular countries of China and Eastern Tartary. The little Guinea Deer, as it is called, seems also confined to the provinces of Africa and the East Indies. The Rabbit, which comes originally from Spain, and has been diffused over all the temperate climates of Europe, did not exist in America; for the animals of that continent which are so called, are of a different species, and all the real ones were transported thither from Europe. The Ferret, brought from Africa to Europe, was unknown in America; as were also our rats and mice, which having been carried there in European ships, have since multiplied prodigiously.

The following then are nearly all the animals of the old continent, namely, the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, camel, dromedary, giraffe, lion, tiger, panther, horse, ass, zebra, ox, buffalo, sheep, goat, hog, dog, hyæna, jackall, genet, civet, cat, gazelle, chamois goat, wild goat, Guinea deer, rabbit, ferret, rat, mouse, loir, lerot, marmot, ichneumon, badger, sable, ermine, jerboa, the maki, and several species of monkeys, none of which were found in America on the first arrival of the Europeans, and which consequently are peculiar to the Old World, as we shall endeavour to prove in the particular history of each animal.

[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 succeeded astonishingly 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 these animals 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 the Tamanduacuacu, or Ouariri, and of the Ouatiriou, 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 called ai, or hai, by the natives of Brasil, on account of the plaintive cry of ai, which it continually sends forth, seems likewise to be confined to the new continent. It is smaller than either of the preceding ones, 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 word Ape is 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 enquire whether 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 have been 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 such as 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 the cervus Burgundicus of 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, and pole-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 being some 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 treated them 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 retrenching the 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.

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 temperate climate. 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 to contain 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 is owing 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, that the 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 the Mexicans 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.

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 Nature had 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 neighbouring islands, 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 solely to 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 classes and 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, of the Rabbit, why is the Rabbit itself omitted, and must be sought for under the genus of the 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 longer classed 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.

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 same stock 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 disproportionally short, 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 having killed 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 always confined 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 word tiger seems 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 was brought 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.

[E] This tiger was streaked, and had been slain, with four others, in the field, by the Emperor, it weighed 265lbs; but one of them weighed 400; when dissected, one-third of its stomach was full of worms, and yet it could not be said the animal had begun to putrify. Hist. Acad. 1669.

Thus the species of the tiger has always been more rare and less diffused than that of the lion. The female, like the lioness, however, produces four or five cubs at a time. She is fierce at all times, but, upon her young being in danger, her fury becomes excessive. She then braves every danger to secure them, and will pursue the plunderers of them with such ferocity, that they are often obliged to drop one to secure the rest; this she takes up and conveys to the nearest cover, and then renews the pursuit, and will follow them to the very gates of towns, or to the ships in which they may have taken refuge; and when she has no longer hopes recovering her young, she expresses her agony by the most dismal howls of despair.

The tiger testifies his anger in the same manner as the lion; he moves the skin of his face, shews his teeth, and roars in a frightful manner; but the tone of his voice is very different; and some travellers have compared it to the hoarse croak of certain large birds; and the ancients expressed it by saying, Tigrides indomitæ raucant, rugiuntque Leones.

The skins of these animals are much esteemed, particularly in China; the Mandarins cover their seats and sedans with them, and also their cushions and pillows in winter. In Europe, though scarce, they are of no great value; those of the panther and leopard being held in much greater estimation. The skin is the only advantage, trifling as it is, which man can derive from this dreadful animal. It has been said that his sweat is poisonous, and that the hair of his whiskers is more dangerous than an envenomed arrow; but the real mischiefs he does when alive are sufficient, without giving imaginary ones to parts of his body when dead; for certain it is, the Indians eat the flesh of the tiger, and that they neither find it disagreeable nor unwholesome, and if the hair of his whiskers, taken in the form of a pill, do destroy, it is that being hard and sharp it produces the same effect in the stomach as a number of small needles would.

[THE PANTHER, OUNCE, AND LEOPARD.]

IN order to avoid an erroneous use of names, to prevent doubt, and to banish ambiguity, it may be necessary to remark that, in Asia and Africa, there are, beside the tiger, whose history we have just given, three other animals of the same genus, but which not only differ from him, but also from each other. These are the Panther, Ounce and Leopard, which have been confounded together by naturalists, and also with a species of the same kind peculiar to America; but to prevent confusion, we shall, in the present instance, confine ourselves solely to those of the old continent.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 107. Panther

FIG. 108. Caracal

The first of these species is the Panther, ([fig. 107]) which the Greeks distinguished by the name of Pardalis, the Latins by that of Panthera, and Pardus, and the more modern Latins by Leopardus. The body of this animal, when it has attained its full growth, is five or six feet long, from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail, which is above two feet long. Its colour is of a yellow hue, more or less dark on the back and sides, and whitish under the belly; it is marked with black spots which are circular, or in the form of a ring, and in which rings there are generally lesser spots in the centre of the same colour; some of these are oval, others, circular, and are frequently above three inches in diameter; on the face and legs the black spots are single, and on the tail and belly they are irregular.

The second is the Little Panther of Oppian, which the ancients have distinguished by no particular name, but which modern travellers have called Ounce, corrupted from the name of lynx or lunx. To this animal we shall preserve the name of Ounce, because, in fact, it seems to have some affinity to the lynx. It is much less than the panther, its body being only about three feet and a half long, which is nearly the size of the lynx; its hair is longer than that of the panther, as is also its tail, which sometimes measures three feet, although its body is one-third less than that of the panther, whose tail never exceeds two feet and an half. The colour of the ounce is whitish grey upon the back and sides, and still more white under the belly; the back and sides of the panther are always yellow, but the spots are nearly of the same size and form in them both.

The third species was unknown to the ancients, being peculiar to Senegal, Guinea, and other southern countries which they had not discovered; and which we, following the example of travellers, shall call Leopard a name which has been improperly applied to the panther. The Leopard is larger than the ounce, though considerably smaller than the panther, being only four feet in length, the tail measures from two to two feet and a half. On the back and sides the hair is of a yellow colour, under the belly it is whitish; it has black annular spots like those of the panther and ounce, but smaller and less regularly disposed.

Each of these animals, therefore, forms a different species. Our furriers call the skins of the first species panther skins; those of the second, which we call ounce, African tiger skins; and those of the third, or leopard, very improperly tiger skins.

Oppian knew the panther and ounce, and was the first who observed there were two species of the former, the one large and the other small. Though alike in the form of their bodies and the disposition of the spots, yet they differed in the length of their tails, which in the small species was longer than in the large ones. The Arabians have named the large panther Nemer, and the small one Phet or Phed; which last seems to be a corruption of Faadh, the present name of this animal in Barbary. “The Faadh,” says Dr. Shaw, in his Travels, “resembles the leopard, (he should have expressed it panther) in having similar spots, in other respects they however differ, for the skin of the faadh is more dark and coarse, and its disposition is also less fierce.” Besides we learn from a passage of Albert, commented on by Gesner, that the phet, or phed of the Arabs, is called in the Italian, and some other European languages Leuaza, or Lonza. It is beyond a doubt then, that the little panther of Oppian, the phet or phed of the Arabians, the faadh of Barbary, and the onza, or ounce of the Europeans, is the same animal; and probably also is the Pard or Pardus of the ancients, and the Panthera of Pliny; since he mentions its hair is white, whereas, as we have observed, that of the great Panther is yellow. It is, besides, highly probable that the little panther was simply called pard or pardus, and that, in process of time, the large panther obtained the name of leopard, or leopardus, from a notion that it was a mongrel species, which had aggrandized itself by an intermixture with that of the lion. As this could only be an unfounded prejudice, I have preferred the primitive name of panther to the modern compound one of leopard, which last I have applied to another animal that has hitherto been mentioned by equivocal names only. The ounce therefore differs from the panther, in being smaller, having a longer tail, also longer hair, of a whitish grey colour; while the leopard differs from them both, by having a coat of a brilliant yellow, more or less deep, and by the smallness of his spots, which are generally disposed in groups, as if each were formed by three or four united.

Pliny, and several after him, have said, that the coat of the female panther was whiter than that of the male. This may be true of the ounce, but no such difference have we ever observed in the panthers belonging to the menagerie of Versailles, which were designed from life; and if there be any difference between the colour of the male and female it can be neither very permanent nor sensible; in some of the skins we have, indeed, perceived different shades, but which we rather ascribed to the difference of age or climate than of sex.

The animals described and dissected by the Academy of Sciences, under the name of Tigers, and that described by Caius, in Gesner, under the name of Uncia, are of the same species as our leopard; and of this there cannot remain a doubt, after comparing the figure, and the description which we have given, with those of Caius and M. Perrault. The latter, indeed, says, that the animals so dissected and described by the gentlemen of the Academy, under the name of tigers, were not the ounce of Caius; but the only reasons he assigns are, that the ounce is smaller, and has not white on the under part of its body. It may also be observed, that Caius, who does not give the exact dimensions, says, generally it was bigger than the shepherd’s dog, and as thick as the bull-dog, though shorter in its legs; how, therefore, Perrault should assert the ounce of Caius to be smaller than the tigers dissected by the gentlemen of the Academy I am at a loss to conceive, for those animals measured only four feet from the nose to the tail, which is the exact length of the leopard we are now describing. On the whole, then, it appears, that the tigers of the Academy, the ounce of Caius, and our leopard, are the same animal; and not less true do I conceive it that our panther is the same with the panther of the ancients, notwithstanding the distinctions which have been attempted to be made by Linnæus, Brisson, and other nomenclators, as they perfectly resemble each other in every respect but size, and that may safely be ascribed to confinement and want of exercise. This difference of size at first perplexed me, but after a scrupulous examination of the large skins sold by the furriers with that of our own, I had not the smallest doubt of their being the same animals. The panther I have described, and two other animals of the same species kept at Versailles, were brought from Barbary. The two first were presented to the French King by the Regency of Algiers, and the third was purchased for his Majesty of an Algerine Jew.

It is particularly necessary to observe, that neither of the animals we are now describing can be classed with the pardus of Linnæus, or the leopardus of Brisson, as they are described with having long spots on the belly, which is a characteristic that belongs neither to the panther, ounce, or leopard, and yet the panther of the ancients has it, as well as the pardus of Gesner, and the panthera of Alpinus; but from the researches I have made I am convinced that these three animals, and perhaps a fourth, which we shall treat of hereafter, and which have not these long spots on the belly, are the only species of this kind to be found in Asia and Africa, and therefore we must hold this character of our nomenclators as fictitious, especially when we recollect, that if any animals have these long spots, either in the old or new continent, they are always upon the neck or back, and never on the belly. We shall merely observe further, that in reading the ancients we must not confound the panther with the panthera, the latter is the animal we have described, but the panther of the scholiasts of Homer and other authors, is a kind of timid wolf, perhaps the jackall, as I shall explain when I come to the history of that animal.

After having dissipated the cloud under which our nomenclators seem to have obscured Nature, and removed every ambiguity, by giving the exact description of the three animals under consideration, we shall now proceed to the peculiarities which relate to them respectively.

Of the panther, which I had an opportunity of examining alive, his appearance was fierce, he had a restless eye, a cruel countenance, precipitate motions, and a cry similar to that of an enraged dog, but more strong and harsh; his tongue was red and exceedingly rough, his teeth were strong and pointed; his claws sharp and hard; his skin was beautiful, of a yellow hue, interspersed with black spots of an annular form, and his hair short; the upper part of his tail was marked with large black spots, and with black and white ringlets towards the extremity; his size and make was similar to that of a vigorous mastiff, but his legs were not so large.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 103. Leopard

FIG. 104. Ounce

All our travellers confirm the testimonies of the ancients as to the large and small panther, that is, our panther and ounce. It appears that there now exist, as in the days of Oppian, in that part of Africa which extends along the Mediterranean, and in the parts of Asia which were known to the ancients, two species of panthers, the largest of which has been called panther or leopard, and the smaller ounce, by the generality of travellers. By them it is universally allowed that the ounce is easily tamed, that he is trained to the chace and employed for this purpose in Persia, and in several other provinces of Asia; that some ounces are so small as to be carried by a horseman on the crupper, and so mild as to allow themselves to be handled and caressed.[F] The Panther appears to be of a more fierce and stubborn nature; when in the power of man, and in his gentlest moments, he seems rather to be subdued than tamed. Never does he entirely lose the ferocity of his disposition; and in order to train him to the chace, much care and precaution are necessary. When thus employed, he is shut up in a cage and carried in one of the little vehicles of the country; as soon as the game appears, the door is opened, and he springs towards his prey, generally overtaking it in three or four bounds, drags it to the ground and strangles it; but if disappointed of his aim he becomes furious, and will even attack his master, who to prevent this dangerous consequence usually carries with him some pieces of flesh or live animals, as lambs or kids, one of which he puts in his way to appease the fury arising from his disappointment.

[F] A particular account of this practice is related in Tavernier’s Travels; Chardin’s Travels in Persia; Gesner’s Hist. Quad. Pros. Alp. Hist. Egypt. Bernier dans le Mosul, &c.

The species of the ounce ([fig. 104]) seems to be more numerous, and more diffused than that of the panther; it is very common in Arabia, Barbary, and the southern parts of Asia, Egypt, perhaps, excepted.[G] They are even known in China, where they are distinguished by the name of hinen-pao.[H] The ounce is employed for the chace, in the hot climates of Asia, because dogs are very rarely to be found unless transported thither, and then they very soon lose not only their voice but their instinct.[I] Besides the panther, ounce, and leopard, have such an antipathy to dogs, that they attack them in preference to all other animals.[J] In Europe our sporting dogs have no enemy but the wolf; but in countries full of tigers, lions, panthers, leopards, and ounces, which are all more strong and cruel than the wolf, to attempt to keep dogs would be in vain. As the scent of the ounce is inferior to that of the dog, he hunts solely by the eye; with such vigour does he bound, that a ditch, or a wall of several feet high, is no impediment to his career; he often climbs trees to watch for his prey, and when near, will suddenly dart upon them; and this method is also adopted by the panther and leopard.

[G] Maserier affirms that there are neither lions, tigers, nor leopards in Egypt. Descrip. Egypt, Tom. II.

[H] A kind of leopard or panther found in the province of Pekin; it is not so ferocious as the ordinary tigers. Thevenot.

[I] Vide Voyage de Jean Ovington, Tom. I. p. 278.

[J] The leopards, says le Maire, are deadly enemies to dogs, and devour all of them they meet.

The Leopard, ([fig. 103]) has the same manners and disposition as the panther; but in no part does he appear to have been tamed like the ounce; nor do the Negroes of Senegal and Guinea, where he greatly abounds, ever make use of him in the chace. He is generally larger than the ounce, but smaller than the panther; and his tail, though shorter than that of the ounce, is from two to two feet and a half in length. This leopard of Senegal and Guinea, to which we have particularly appropriated the name of leopard, is probably the animal which at Congo is called the Engoi; and perhaps also the Antamba[K] of Madagascar. I quote these names, from a persuasion that an acquaintance with the denominations applied to them in the countries which they inhabit would increase our knowledge of animals.

[K] The antamba is a beast as large as a dog; it has a round head, and, in the opinion of the Negroes, resembles the leopard; it devours both men and cattle, and is only to be found in the most unfrequented parts of the island. Flacourt’s Voyage.

The species of the leopard seems to be subject to more varieties than that of the panther and the ounce. I have examined many leopards’ skins which differed from each other, not only in the ground colour, but in the shade of the spots which last are always smaller than those of the panther or the ounce. In all leopards’ skins, the spots are nearly of the same size and the same figure, and their chief difference consists in their colour being deeper in some than in others; in being also more or less yellow, consists also the difference in the hair itself; but as all these skins are nearly of the same size, both in the body and tail, it is highly probable they belong to the same species of animals.

The panther, ounce, and leopard, are only found in Africa, and the hottest climates of Asia; they have never been diffused over the northern, nor even the temperate regions. Aristotle speaks of the panther as an animal of Asia and Africa, and expressly says, it does not exist in Europe. It is impossible, therefore, that these animals, which are confined to the torrid zone of the old continent, could ever have passed to the new world by any northern lands; and it will be found, by the description we shall give of the American animals of this kind, that they are a different species, and ought not to be confounded with those of Africa and Asia, as they have been by most of our nomenclators.

These animals, in general, delight in the thickest forests, and often frequent the borders of rivers, and the environs of solitary habitations, where they surprise their prey, and seize equally the tame and wild animals that come there to drink. Men they seldom attack, even though provoked. They easily climb trees in pursuit of wild cats and other animals, which cannot escape them. Though they live solely by prey, and are usually meagre, travellers pretend that their flesh is not unpalatable; the Indians and negroes eat it, but they prefer that of the dog. With respect to their skins, they are all valuable, and make excellent furs. The most beautiful and most costly is that of the leopard, which, when the colours are bright, not unfrequently sells for eight or nine guineas.

[THE JAGUAR.]

THE jaguar ([fig. 105]) resembles the ounce in size, and nearly so in the form of the spots upon his skin, and in disposition. He is less ferocious than the panther or the leopard. The ground of his colour, like that of the leopard, is a bright yellow, and not grey like that of the ounce. His tail is shorter than that of either; his hair is longer than the panther’s, but shorter than that of the ounce; it is frizzled when he is young, but smooth when at full growth. I never saw this animal alive, but had one sent me entire and well preserved in spirits, and it is from this subject the figure and description have been drawn; it was taken when very young, and brought up in the house till it was two years old, and then killed for the purpose of being sent to me; it had not therefore acquired its full growth, but it was evident, from a slight inspection, that its full size would hardly have equalled that of an ordinary dog. It is, nevertheless, an animal the most formidable, the most cruel, it is, in a word, the tiger of the new world, where Nature seems to have diminished all the genera of quadrupeds. The Jaguar, like the tiger, lives on prey; but a lighted brand will put him to flight, and if his appetite is satisfied, he so entirely loses all courage and vivacity, that he will fly from a single dog. He discovers no signs of activity or alertness but when pressed with hunger. The savages, by nature cowardly, dread his approach. They pretend he has a particular propensity to destroy them, and that if he meets with Indians and Europeans asleep together, he will pass the latter and kill the former. The same thing has been said of the leopard, that he prefers black men to white, that he scents them out, and can distinguish them as well by night as by day.

Almost all the authors who have written the History of the New World, mention this animal, some by the name of tiger or leopard, and others under the names given them at Brasil, Mexico, &c. The first who gave a particular description of him were Piso and Marcgrave, who called him jaguara, instead of janouara, his Brasilian name. They also speak of another animal of the same genus, and perhaps of the same species, under the name of jaguarette; but, like those two authors, we have distinguished them from each other, because there is a probability of their being different species; but whether they are really so, or only varieties of the same species, we cannot determine, having never seen but one of the kinds. Piso and Marcgrave say, that the jaguarette differs from the jaguar, by its hair being shorter, more glossy, and of a different colour, being black, interspersed with spots of a still deeper black. But from the similitude in the form of his body, in his manners, and disposition, he may, nevertheless, be only a variety of the same species, especially as, according to the testimony of Piso, the ground colour of the jaguar, as well as that of the spots, vary in different individuals; he says that some are marked with black, and others with red or yellowish spots; and with regard to the difference of colour, that is, of grey, yellow, or black, the same is to be met with in other species of animals, as there are black wolves, black foxes, black squirrels, &c. If such variations are not so common among wild as tame animals, it is because the former are less liable to those accidents which tend to produce them. Their lives being more uniform, their food less various, and their freedom less restrained, their nature must be more permanent, that is, less subject to accidental alterations and changes in colour.

The jaguar is found in Brasil, Paraguay, Tucuman, Guiana, in the country of the Amazons, in Mexico, and in all parts of South America. At Cayenne, however, this animal is more scarce than the cougar, which they denominate red tiger, nor is the jaguar so common now in Brasil, which appears his native country, as it was formerly. A price has been set upon his head, so that many of them have been destroyed, and the others have withdrawn themselves from the coasts to the inland parts of the country. The jaguarette appears to have been always more scarce, or at least to have inhabited those places which were distant from the haunts of men, and the few travellers who mention him appear to have drawn their accounts entirely from Marcgrave and Piso.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 105. Jaguar of New Spain

FIG. 106. Cougar

SUPPLEMENT.

M. Le BRUN had a female Jaguar of New Spain ([fig. 105]) sent him in the year 1775; it appeared very young, and was much less than the one described in the original work, this measuring one foot eleven inches long, and the former two feet five inches; there was a great resemblance between them, and the differences only such as are common to the varieties of the same species. The ground colour of the one we are now speaking of was a dirty grey intermixed with red: the spots were yellow, bordered with black; its head yellow, and ears black, with a white spot on the external part.

Among a number of excellent remarks made by M. Sonnini de Manoncour, respecting the jaguars of Guiana, he says, “the hair of the young jaguar is not frizzled, as stated by M. de Buffon, but perfectly smooth, and with regard to their only equalling the size of an ordinary dog, I have had the skin of one that measured near five feet from the nose to the tail, which was two feet long; and from the tracks I have seen of these animals I have little doubt of the American tigers being as large as those of Africa, except the royal tiger, the largest animal to which that name is given; for the panther, which M. de Buffon considers the largest, does not exceed five or six feet when full grown, and it is certain that some of these animals exceed those dimensions. When young their colour is a deep yellow, which becomes lighter as they advance in years. He is not by any means an indolent animal; he constantly attacks dogs, commits great devastation among flocks, and in the desarts is even formidable to men. In a journey I made through these forests, we were tormented with one for three successive nights, and yet he avoided all our attempts to destroy him; but finding we kept up large fires, of which they are much afraid, he at last left us with a dismal howling. At Cayenne the natives have an idea that the jaguar would rather destroy them than the whites, but it is not so with the savages, with whom I have travelled through the desarts, and never found them to have any particular terror; they slept as we did, with their hammocks suspended, making a little fire under them, which often went out before the morning; and, in short, took no particular precautions, where they knew themselves surrounded with those animals. (This, observes M. Buffon, is a strong proof that they are not very dangerous animals to men.) The flesh of the jaguar is not good. All the animals of the new continent fly from him, not being able to withstand his power: the only one capable of making any tolerable resistance is the ant-eater, who, on being attacked, turns on his back, and often preserves himself by the strength of his long claws.”

[THE COUGAR.]

THE Cougar, ([fig. 106]) is longer but less thick than the jaguar; he is more agile, more slender, and stands higher on his legs; he has a small head, long tail, and short hair, which is nearly of one entire colour, namely, a lively red, intermixed with a few blackish tints, particularly on his back. He is neither marked with stripes like the tiger, nor with spots like the panther, ounce, or leopard. His chin, neck, and all the inferior parts of his body are whitish. Though not so strong as the jaguar he is as fierce, and perhaps more cruel. He appears more ravenous, for having once seized his prey, he kills it, and without waiting to tear it to pieces, he continues to eat and suck alternately, until he has gorged his appetite and glutted his blood-thirsty fury.

These animals are common in Guiana. They have been known formerly to swim over from the continent to Cayenne, in order to devour the flocks; insomuch that they were at first considered as the scourge of the colony; but by degrees the settlers lessened their numbers, and by continually hunting them have compelled the remainder to retire far from the cultivated parts of the country. They are found in Brasil, Paraguay, and in the country of the Amazons; and there is reason to believe that the animal, described by some travellers, under the name of the Ocorome, in Peru, is the same as the cougar, as well as that in the country of the Iroquois, which has been considered as a tiger, though it is neither striped like that animal, nor spotted like the panther.

The cougar, by the lightness of his body, and length of his legs, seems to be more calculated for speed, and climbing of trees, than the jaguar. They are equally indolent and cowardly, when glutted with prey; and they seldom attack men unless they find them asleep. When there is a necessity for passing the night in the woods, the kindling a fire is the only precaution necessary to prevent their approach.[L] They delight in the shades of forests, where they hide themselves in some bushy tree, in order to dart upon such animals as pass by. Though they live only on prey, and drink blood more often than water, yet it is said their flesh is very palatable. Piso says, it is as good as veal; and Charlevoix, and others, have compared it to mutton. I think it is hardly credible that the flesh can be well tasted; and therefore prefer the testimony of Desmarchais, who says, the best thing about this animal is his skin, of which they make horse-cloths, his flesh being generally lean and of a disagreeable flavour.

[L] The Indians on the banks of the Oronoka, in Guiana, light a fire during the night in order to frighten away the tigers who dare not approach the place at long as the fire remains burning.

SUPPLEMENT.

MR. COLINSON mentions another species of cougar, which is found on the mountains of Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and the adjacent provinces, and which, from his account, seems to differ very much from that just described; his legs being shorter, and his body and tail much longer, but in colour, and in the shape of the head, they have a perfect resemblance.

M. de la Borde describes three species of rapacious animals at Cayenne; first, the jaguar, which they call tiger; the second, the cougar, or red tiger; (the former is about the size of a large bull-dog, and the latter much smaller) and the third they call black tiger, which we have termed black cougar. ([fig. 102]) “Its head, continues M. de la Borde, is somewhat like that of a common cougar; it has long black hair, a long tail, and large whiskers, but is much less than the other. The skin of both the jaguar and cougar are easily penetrated even with the arrows of the Indians. When very hard set for food, they will attack cows and oxen; in this case they spring upon their backs, and having brought them to the ground, they tear them to pieces, first opening their breasts and bellies, to glut themselves with their blood; they then drag pieces of flesh into the wood, covering the remainder with branches of trees, and keeping near to feed upon it, until it begins to putrify, when they touch it no more. They will keep near a flock of wild hogs, for the purpose of seizing the stragglers, but cautiously avoid being surrounded by them. They often seek for prey on the sea-shore, and devour the eggs left there by the turtles: they also make prey of the caïmans, or alligators, lizards, and fishes; to take the former, they use the craft of lying down by the edge of the water, which they strike so as to make sufficient noise to attract his attention, who will come towards the place, and no sooner puts his head above water, than his seducer makes a certain spring at him, kills and drags him to some convenient place where he may devour him at leisure. It is said by the Indians that the jaguar decoys the agouti in the same manner, by counterfeiting his cry. They sometimes eat the leaves and buds of the Indian figs; they are excellent swimmers, and cross the largest rivers. They seldom have more than one young at a time, which they hide in the trunks of hollow trees. They eat their flesh at Cayenne, and, when young, it is as white as that of a rabbit.”

The cougar is easily tamed, and rendered nearly as familiar as domestic animals.

[THE LYNX.]

THE gentlemen of the Academy of Sciences have given a very accurate description of the Lynx, and have discussed with equal ingenuity and erudition the circumstances and names relative to this animal, which occur in the writings of the ancients. They have shewn that the lynx of Ælian is the same animal which they have dissected and described under the name of Lupus-cervarius, and justly censure those who have taken it for the Thos of Aristotle. This discussion is enriched with observations and reflections equally interesting and pertinent; it is a pity, therefore, they had not adopted its real name of lynx, instead of that which is the same that Gaza gave to the thos of Aristotle. Having, like Oppian, intimated that there are two species or races of the lynx, the one large, which chaces the stag and fallow-deer, and the other smaller, which scarcely hunts any thing but the hare, they appear to have confounded the two species together, namely, the spotted lynx, which is commonly found in the northern countries; and the lynx of the Levant or Barbary, whose skin is of an uniform colour. I have seen both these animals alive, and they closely resemble each other in many particulars. They have both long stripes of black hair at the extremities of their ears. This very circumstance, by which Ælian first distinguished the lynx, belongs, in fact, to these animals only, and perhaps it was this which induced the Academy to consider them as the same species. But, independently of the difference of colour and spots upon the hair, it will appear extremely probable that they belong to two distinct species.

Klein says, that the most beautiful lynx belongs to Africa and Asia in general, and to Persia in particular; that he had seen one at Dresden, which came from Africa, which was finely spotted, and of a considerable height; that those of Europe, especially from Prussia, and other northern countries are less pleasing to the eye, that their colour is little, if at all, inclined to white, but rather of a reddish hue, with spots confused and huddled together. Without absolutely denying what M. Klein has here advanced, I must declare I could never learn from any other authority that the lynx is an inhabitant of the warm climates of Asia and Africa. Kolbe is the only writer who mentions the lynx as common at the Cape of Good Hope, and as perfectly resembling that of Brandenburg in Germany; but I have discovered so many mistakes in the writings of this author, that I never gave much credit to his testimony, unless when supported by that of others. Now all travellers mention having seen the spotted lynx in the North of Germany, in Lithuania, Muscovy, Siberia, Canada, and other northern regions of both continents; but not one, whose accounts I have read, asserts he met with this animal in the warm climates of Africa or Asia. The lynxes of the Levant, Barbary, Arabia, and other hot climates, are, as I before observed, of one uniform colour, and without spots; they cannot, therefore, be the same as that mentioned by Klein, which he says was finely spotted, nor that of Kolbe, which, according to his statement, perfectly resembled those of Brandenburgh. It would be difficult to reconcile these testimonies with the information we have from other hands. The lynx is certainly more common in cold than in temperate climates, and is at least very rare in hot ones. He was, indeed, known to the Greeks and Romans; a circumstance which does not, however, infer that he came from Africa, or the southern provinces of Asia. Pliny, on the contrary, says, that the first of them which were seen at Rome, came from Gaul in the time of Pompey. At present there are none in France, except possibly a few in the Alpine and Pyrenean mountains. But the Romans, under the name of Gaul, comprehended several of the northern countries; and, besides, France is not at this time so cold as it was in those times.

The most beautiful skins of the lynx come from Siberia, as belonging to the Loup-cervier, and from Canada, under the name of chat-cervier, because, like all other animals, they are smaller in the new than in the old world; and are therefore compared to the wolf in Europe, and to the cat in Canada. What seems to have deceived M. Klein, and might have deceived even more able writers is, first, that the ancients have said that India furnished lynxes to the god Bacchus; secondly, Pliny has placed the lynx in Ethiopia, and has said their hides and claws were prepared at Carpathos, now Scarpantho or Zerpantho, an island in the Mediterranean, between Rhodes and Candia; thirdly, Gesner has allotted a particular article to the lynx of Asia or Africa, in which there is the following extract of a letter from Baron Balicze. “You have not,” says he to Gesner, “mentioned in your history of animals, the Indian or African lynx. As Pliny has mentioned it, the authority of that great man has induced me to send you a drawing of this animal, that you may include it in your list. This drawing was made at Constantinople. This animal is very different from the lynx of Germany, being much larger, has shorter and rougher hair, &c.” Gesner, without making any reflections on this letter, contents himself with giving the substance of it, and intimating within a parenthesis, that the drawing never came to hand.

To prevent a continuance of these errors, let it be observed, first, that poets and painters have affixed tigers, panthers, and lynxes, to the car of Bacchus, as best pleased their fancies; or rather because all fierce and spotted animals were consecrated to that god; secondly, that it is the word lynx which constitutes the whole of the ambiguity, since by comparing what Pliny says in one[M] passage with two others[N] it is plain that the Ethiopian animal which he calls lynx, is by no means the same as the chaus, or lupus-cervarius, which comes from the northern countries; and that it was from this name being improperly applied that the Baron Balicze was deceived though he considers the Indian lynx as a different animal from the German luchs, or our lynx. This Indian or African lynx, which he has described as larger and more full of spots than our lynx, was in all probability, a kind of panther. However true or erroneous this last conjecture may be, it appears that the lynx, of which we are now treating, is a stranger in the southern countries, and is found only in the northern parts of the new and old continents. Olaus says this animal is common in the forests of the North of Europe; Olearius, in speaking of Muscovy, asserts the same thing; Rosinus Lentilius observes that the lynx is common in Courland and Lithuania, and that those of Cassubia, a province of Pomerania, are very small, and not so much spotted as those of Poland and Lithuania; and lastly, Paul Jovius confirms these testimonies by adding, that the finest skins of the lynx come from Siberia, and that there is a great traffic carried on with them at Ustivaga, a town about 600 miles from Moscow.

[M] Vide Pliny, lib. VIII. cap. 19.

[N] Ibid. VIII. c. 22, 23.

This animal, which as we have shewn, prefers the cold to the temperate climates, is one of those which might have passed from one continent to the other through the northern regions, and this is probably the reason why we find him a tenant of the northern parts of America. Travellers have described him in such a manner as to preclude all mistake; and besides its skin forms an article of commerce between Europe and America. The lynx of Canada, as we have already remarked, is only smaller and whiter than those of Europe, and it is from this difference in size that they have been distinguished with the appellation of chat-cervier, and been considered by our nomenclators as animals of a different species. Without pronouncing decisively upon this question we shall only observe, that to all appearance the lynxes of Canada and of Muscovy are of the same species, first because the difference in size is not very considerable, since it is almost relatively the same as that which takes place between all animals common to both continents; the wolf, fox, &c. being smaller in America than they are in Europe, it cannot be expected to be otherwise with the lynx. Secondly, because, even in the north of Europe, these animals are found to vary in size; and authors mention two kinds, the one large and the other small. Thirdly, because they equally require the same climate, are of the same dispositions, the same figure, differing only in size, and a few trifling particulars of colour, circumstances not sufficient to authorize our pronouncing them to be two distinct species.

The lynx, of which the ancients have said his sight could penetrate opaque bodies, and whose urine possessed the properly of hardening into a precious stone, called Lapis Lyncurius, is an animal that never existed, any more than the properties attributed to him, except in fable. To the true lynx this imaginary one has no affinity but in name. We must not, therefore, following the example of most naturalists, attribute to the former, which is a real being, the properties of this imaginary one, the existence of which even Pliny himself does not seem disposed to believe, since he speaks of it as an extraordinary animal, and classes it with the sphynx, the pegasus, and other prodigies, or monsters, the produce of Ethiopia, a country with which the ancients were very little acquainted.

Our lynx, though he cannot see through stone walls, has bright eyes, a mild aspect, and an agreeable lively appearance. His urine produces not precious stones, but he covers it with earth, like the cats, to whom he has a near resemblance, and whose manners, and love of cleanliness are the same. In nothing is he like the wolf but in a kind of howl, which being heard at a considerable distance often deceives the hunters, by making them suppose they hear a real wolf. This alone, perhaps, is the cause of his having received the appellation of loup, and to distinguish him from the real wolf, and because he attacks the stags, the epithet of cervarius might have afterwards been added. The lynx is not so big as the wolf, has shorter legs, and generally about the size of a fox. He differs from the panther and ounce in the following particulars; he has longer hair, his spots are less lively, and are badly disposed; his ears are much longer, and they have tufts of black hairs at the points; his tail is shorter, and is also black at the end; his eyes have a whitish cast, and his countenance is more agreeable, and less ferocious. The skin of the male is more spotted than that of the female. He does not run like the wolf, but walks and bounds like the cat. He lives upon other animals, and those he pursues to the tops of the highest trees, so that neither the wild-cat, pine-weasel, ermine, nor squirrel, can escape him. He also seizes birds, lies in wait for the stag, roe-buck, and hare, whom he seizes by the throat, sucks their blood, and then opens their heads to devour the brains; this done he frequently abandons them to go in search of fresh prey, and is seldom known to return to the former one; which has given rise to the remark, that of all animals the lynx has the shortest memory. His colour changes with the climate and the season. In winter his fur is much better than in summer, and his flesh, like that of all beasts of prey, is not good to eat.

SUPPLEMENT.

THERE is a Canadian Lynx in the Royal Cabinet in France, in fine preservation; it is only two feet three inches long, and rather more than thirteen inches high; its body is covered with long grey hair, striped with yellow, and spotted with black; its head also is grey, interspersed with white and yellow hairs, and shaded with a kind of black stripes; it has long white whiskers; its ears are more than two inches high, white on the inside, with yellow edges, the outside of a mouse colour, edged with black, and at the tip of each ear is a tuft of black hair seven lines high; it has a short tail, which is black from the end to about the middle, and the other part is of a reddish white; its belly, hind-legs, inside of the fore-legs and feet are of a dirty white, and it has long white claws. This lynx strongly resembles the one we have just described, except in the length of the tail and tuft on the ears, from which we may infer that the Canadian Lynx is a variety from that of the old continent.

Pontoppidan describes the lynx of Norway to be white with deep spots, and claws like those of a cat; he says there are four species there, some being like the wolf, others the fox, others the cat, and others with a head like that of a colt; the last of which is not only doubtful in itself, but throws a degree of suspicion on the veracity of the remainder.

The species of the lynx is very common throughout Europe, and also in the northern provinces of Asia. Their skins are very valuable, and much esteemed for muffs, &c. in Norway, Russia, and even as far as China, and notwithstanding they are very common, they sell at a high price.

[THE CARACAL.]

THOUGH the Caracal[O] resembles the lynx in size, formation of the body, aspect, and the tufts of black hair at the extremities of the ears, I do not scruple from their disagreement in other respects, to treat of them as animals of a different species. The Caracal is not spotted like the lynx; his hair is rougher and shorter; his tail is longer, and of a uniform colour; his snout is longer, in aspect he is less mild, and in disposition more fierce. The lynx inhabits cold and at most temperate climates, while the caracal is to be found only in the warmest countries. It is as much from these differences of disposition and climate, that I judge them to be of different species, as from the inspection and comparison of the two animals, both of which I have examined and had designed from life.

[O] In Turkey it is called Kaarah-kula; Arabia Gat el Challah; in Persia Siyah-Gush, denoting in all three languages, the cat with long ears.

The Caracal is common in Barbary, in Arabia, and in all those countries inhabited by the lion, panther, and ounce. Like them he depends on prey for subsistence, but from the inferiority of his size and strength, he has much difficulty to procure a sufficiency; frequently being obliged to be content with the leavings of the more powerful. He keeps at a distance from the panther, because that animal exercises its cruelty after being gorged with food; but he follows the lion, who, when the cravings of his appetite are satisfied, never injures any creature. From the remains left by this noble animal, the caracal not unoften enjoys a comfortable repast. Sometimes he follows, or even goes before, at no great distance, taking a refuge in the trees, when self-preservation renders it necessary, and where the lion cannot, like the panther, follow him. For all these reasons it is that the caracal has been called the Lion’s Guide, or Provider; and it is said that the lion, whose smell is far from being acute, employs him to scent out his prey, and is permitted to enjoy the remains as a reward for his trouble.

The caracal[P] ([fig. 108]) is about the size of a fox, but more fierce, and much stronger. He has been known to attack, and in a few minutes, to tear in pieces a large dog, which defended himself to the utmost. He is very difficult to tame, yet if taken very young, and reared with care, he may be trained to the chace, to which he is by nature inclined, and in which he is very successful, especially if he be only let loose upon such animals as are inferior in strength, for he declines a service of danger with every expression of reluctance. In India they made use of him to catch hares, rabbits, and even large birds, whom he seizes with singular address and facility.

[P] The principal part of his body is of a reddish brown colour, the inferior parts of the neck and belly whitish; round his muzzle black, his ears of a dark shade, with a tuft of black hair from his extremities.

SUPPLEMENT.

MR. BRUCE has informed me that he saw a caracal in Nubia, which differed from the one of barbary, just described; his face was more round, his ears black on the outside, intermixed with white hairs, and on the breast, belly, and inside of the thighs he had yellow spots. But this is a mere variety, of which there are several: for instance, in Lybia there is a caracal with white ears, and a white tail with four black rings at the end, and which is not bigger than a domestic cat; and if this were to establish a difference we might say there are two species of caracals in Barbary, the one large, with black ears and long tufts, and the other smaller, with white ears and short tufts.

[THE HYÆNA.]

ARISTOTLE has left us two accounts by which alone the hyæna ([fig. 110]) might easily be distinguished from all other animals. Nevertheless, travellers and naturalists have confounded him with no less than four other species, namely, the jackall, glutton, civet, and the baboon; all of which are carnivorous and ferocious like the hyæna, and all have some few particular resemblances to him, whence these errors may have originated. The jackall inhabits the same countries, and like the hyæna resembles the wolf in form; like him also he feeds upon dead carcasses, and digs up graves to devour their contents. The glutton has the same voracity, the same appetite for corrupted flesh, the same propensity for digging the dead out of their graves; and though he belongs to a different climate, and his figure is widely different from that of the hyæna, yet from this affinity of disposition authors have thought themselves warranted in considering them as of the same species. The civet is a native of the same countries as the hyæna, and like him has a streak of long hair along the back, and also a particular opening, or glandular pouch; characteristics which belong only to a few animals, and which induced Bellon to suppose the civet was the hyæna of the ancients. As to the baboon, which has hands and feet like those of a man or a monkey, he resembles the hyæna still less than the other three, and it must be solely from their name that they have been confounded together.

The hyæna, according to Dr. Shaw, is called dubbah in Barbary; and Marmol, and Leo Africanus, say, the baboon is distinguished by the name of dabuh; and as the baboon belongs to the same climates, scratches up the earth and is nearly of the same form with the hyæna; these circumstances first deceived travellers, and naturalists adopted their blunders without investigation; and even those who distinguished the two animals, retained the name of dabuh to the hyæna, which in fact belongs to the baboon. It appears, then, that the hyæna is neither the dabuh of the Arabians, the jesef or sesef of the Africans, nor the deeb of Barbary. But to put a final stop to this confusion of names, I shall give, in a few words, the substance of the inquiries I have made with respect to those animals.

Aristotle calls it by two names, hyæna and glanus; names which we may be assured are applied to the same animals by comparing the passages wherein they are mentioned.[Q] The ancient Latins retained the name hyæna, and never adopted that of glanus. In the writings of the modern Latins, however, we find the ganus, or gannus, and belbus employed as names for the hyæna. According to Rasis, the Arabians call it kabo, or zabo, names that appear to be derived from the word zeeb, which, in their language denominates a wolf. In Barbary the hyæna bears the name of dubbah, as appears from the description given of this animal by Dr. Shaw.[R] In Turkey it is called zirtlaat, according to Nieremberg; in Persia kaftaar, as stated by Kæmpfer; and castar, according to Pietro della Valle. These are the only names which seem actually to refer to the hyæna; though it is nevertheless probable that the lycaon and the crocuta of India and Ethiopia, of which the ancients speak, are no other than the hyæna. Porphyry expressly says that the crocuta of the Indies is the hyæna of the Greeks; and, indeed, all they have written, whether true or fabulous, respecting the lycaon and crocuta, bears some analogy to the nature of the hyæna. But we shall make no further conjectures on this subject until we treat of fabulous animals, and the affinities they have with real ones.

[Q] Aristotle Hist. Animal. lib. vi. c. 32. lib. viii. c. 5.

[R] The Dubbah is nearly the size of the wolf. Its neck is so exceedingly stiff, that when it offers to look behind, or even on one side, it is obliged to turn the whole body, like the hog, the badger, and the crocodile. Its colour is somewhat inclined to a reddish brown, with a few brown streaks of a darker hue, it has very long hairs on the neck which it can occasionally erect. Its paws are large and well armed, with which it digs up plants, and sometimes dead bodies from their graves. Next to the lion and panther, the dubbah is the most fierce of all the animals of Barbary. As it is furnished with a mane, has a difficulty in turning the head, and scrapes up dead bodies from their graves, it has every appearance of being the hyæna of the ancients. See Shaw’s Travels.

The panther of the Greeks, the lupus canarius of Gaza, and the lupus armenius of the modern Latins and Arabians, seem to be the same animal, that is, the jackall, which the Turks call cical, according to Pollux, and thacal according to Spon and Wheeler; which the modern Greeks distinguish by the name of zachalia, the Persians siechal, or schachal, and the Moors of Barbary deeb; that of jackall, however, having been adopted by a number of travellers, to that we shall give the preference, and only remark at present, that he differs from the hyæna not only in size, figure, and colour, but in natural habits, for the hyæna is a solitary animal, while the jackall is seldom seen but in troops. After the example of Kæmpfer, some of our nomenclators have called the jackall lupus aureus, because his hair is of a lively yellow hue.

It is therefore evident, that the jackall is a very different animal from the hyæna; and no less so than the glutton, which is an animal confined to the northern regions of Lapland, Russia, and Siberia; it is a stranger even in the temperate climates, and therefore could never have inhabited Arabia, or any of the other warm countries in which the hyæna resides. It differs also in form, for the glutton bears a strong resemblance to a very large badger; his legs are so short that his belly almost reaches the ground; he has five toes on each of his feet, has no mane, and his body is covered with black hair, excepting sometimes a few reddish yellow hairs upon his sides; in short, he resembles him in nothing but in being exceedingly voracious. He was unknown to the ancients, who had made no great progress into the north of Europe. Olaus is the first author who mentions this animal and from his prodigious gluttony he called him gulo. In Sclavonia he afterwards obtained the name of rosomak, and in Germany jerff, or wildfras, and the French travellers have called him glouton. There are varieties in this species, as well as in that of the jackall, which we shall speak of when we come to the particular history of those animals, and shall only here observe, that those varieties, instead of assimilating them with the hyæna, render them additionally a more distinct species.

The civet has nothing in common with the hyæna but the glandular pouch, under the tail, and the mane along the neck and back-bone. It differs from the hyæna in figure and size, not being more than half as large; his ears are short and covered with hair, whereas those of the hyæna are long and naked; he has also short legs, and five toes upon each foot, while the legs of the hyæna are long, and he has only four toes upon each foot; nor does the civet dig up the earth in search for dead bodies. From these differences these animals are easily to be distinguished from each other.

With respect to the baboon, which is the papio of the Latins, and as we have before observed, has been mistaken for the hyæna, merely from the ambiguity of names, which seems to have arisen from a passage of Leo Africanus, and since copied by Marmol. “The dabuh say these authors, is of the size and form of the wolf; and scratches up dead bodies from their graves.” From which it was supposed to mean the dubbah, or hyæna, although it is expressly stated in the same passages that the dubbah has hands and feet resembling those of a man; a remark which, however applicable to the baboon, cannot be applied to the hyæna.

From taking a view of the lupus-marinus of Bellon, which Gesner has copied, we might mistake it for the figure of the hyæna, to which it bears a great resemblance; but his description corresponds not with our hyæna, for he says, the lupus-marinus is an amphibious animal which feeds on fish, and has sometimes been seen on the coasts of the British ocean; besides this author says nothing of the peculiar characteristics which distinguish the hyæna from all other animals. It is possible that Bellon, prepossessed with the notion that the civet was the hyæna of the ancients, has given the figure of the real one under the name of lupus-marinus, for so striking and singular are the characters of that animal, that it is hardly possible to be deceived in them; he is, perhaps, the only quadruped that has four toes upon each foot. Like the badger he has an aperture under the tail, which does not penetrate into the body; his ears are long, straight, and naked; his head is shorter and more square than that of the wolf; his legs are longer, especially the hind ones; his eyes are placed like those of the dog; the hair of his body and mane is of a dark grey, with a small intermixture of yellow and black, and disposed all along in waves, and though in size he equals the wolf, yet he has, nevertheless, a contracted appearance.

This wild and solitary animal resides in the caverns of mountains, the clefts of rocks, or in dens, which he forms for himself under the earth. Though taken ever so young he is not to be tamed; he is naturally ferocious. He lives like the wolf, by depredation, but he is more strong and daring. He sometimes attacks men, and darts with a ferocious resolution on all kinds of cattle; he follows the flocks, and even breaks down the sheep-folds in the night to get at his prey. His eyes shine in the dark, and it is asserted that he sees better by night than day. All naturalists who have treated of this animal, except Kæmpfer, say, that his cry resembles the noise of a man who is vomiting, while the latter asserts it to be like the lowing of a calf. He defends himself against the lion, stands in no awe of the panther, and attacks the ounce, which is incapable of resisting him. When at a loss for prey he scrapes up the earth with his feet, and tears out the carcasses of animals and men, which in the countries he inhabits are promiscuously buried in the fields. He is found in almost all the hot climates of Africa and Asia, and it is probable that the animal called farasse, at Madagascar, which resembles the wolf in figure, but is larger and stronger, is the same animal.

Of this animal more absurd stories have been told than of any other. The ancients have gravely written that the hyæna is alternately male and female; that when it brings forth, suckles and rears its progeny, it remains as a female the whole year, but the year following it resumes the functions of the male, and obliges its companion to submit to those of the female. The circumstance which gave rise to this fable is plainly the orifice under the tail, in both males and females, independently of the organs of generation peculiar to both sexes, and which are the same in the hyæna as in all other animals. It has also been affirmed that this animal could imitate the human voice, remember the names of shepherds, call upon, fascinate, and render them motionless; that he can terrify shepherdesses, cause them to forget and neglect their flocks, to be distracted in love, &c. All this might surely happen without the intervention of the hyæna! But I shall conclude here, to avoid the reproach which has been cast upon Pliny, that of taking pleasure in compiling and relating absurd fables.

SUPPLEMENT.

AT the fair of St. Germain, in the year 1773, I saw a male hyæna; the one just described was very ferocious, and as I mentioned untameable, but this was perfectly gentle, for though his keeper made him angry for the purpose of erecting his mane, yet he seemed to forget it in a few moments, and suffer himself to be played with without any appearance of dislike. He exactly accorded with the description I have given, except his tail being entirely white.

In the island of Meroë there is a large kind of hyænas, so strong that they can run off with a man to the distance of more than a league without stopping. These are also of a darker colour, and erect their long hairs on the hind parts and not the front. Mr. Bruce informs me that he has observed, that when the hyænas are forced to take to flight, they are at first exceedingly lame of the left hind leg, and which continues for more than an hundred paces, so much so indeed as to give them the appearance of falling, and that it is the same also with those of Syria and Barbary.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 109. Lynx.

FIG. 110. Hyæna.

[THE CIVET AND THE ZIBET.]

THE generality of naturalists are of opinion that the perfume called civet, or musk, is furnished only by one species of animals. I have, however, seen two animals that furnish it, which, though they have many essential affinities, both in their external and internal conformations, yet differ in so many characteristics, that there is sufficient reason to consider them as two distinct species. To the first I have continued the original name of Civet, (fig. 111.) and the second, for the sake of distinction, I have called Zibet ([fig. 113]) The civet seems to be the same as that described by the Academy of Sciences; by Caius, in Gesner, page 837, and by Fabius Columna, who has given both the male and female figures in the publication of Faber, which follows that of Hernandes. The zibet appears to be the same animal as M. de la Peyronnie has described under the name of Musk Animal, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for the year 1731. Both differ from the civet in the very same characters; both want the mane, or the long hair, on the back-bone, and both have the tail marked with strong annular streaks. The civet, on the contrary, has a mane, but no rings on the tail. It must, however be acknowledged that our zibet, and the musk animal of M. de la Peyronnie, are not so perfectly similar as to leave no doubt of the identity of their species. The rings on the tail of the zibet are larger than those of the musk animal, and the length of his tail is shorter in proportion to that of his body; but these differences are slight, and appear to be mere accidental varieties, to which the civet must be more subject than any other wild animal, as they are reared and fed like domestic ones in many parts of the Levant and East Indies. Certain it is, that our zibet bears a stronger resemblance to the musk animal than to the civet, and consequently they may be considered as the same species. Nor, indeed, do we mean positively to affirm that civet and zibet are not varieties of the same species, but from their different characteristics there is a strong presumption they really are so.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 111. Civet

FIG. 112. Genet
FIG. 113. Zibet

The animal which we here name the Civet, is called the falanoue, at Madagascar, nzime, or nzfusi at Congo, kankan in Ethiopia, and kastor in Guinea. That it is the civet of Guinea I am certain, for the one I had was sent from Guinea, to one of my correspondents at St. Domingo, where, after being fed for some time, it was killed for the more easy conveyance to Europe.

The zibet is probably the civet of Asia, of the East Indies, and of Arabia, where he is called zebet, or zibet, an Arabic word, which likewise signifies the perfume of that animal, and which we have adopted to signify the animal itself. He differs from the civet in having a longer and less thick body; a snout more thin and slender, and somewhat concave on the upper part; whereas that of the civet is more short, thick, and rather convex. The ears of the zibet are also larger and more elevated; his tail is longer, and more strongly marked; his hair is shorter and much more soft; he has no mane, or long hair on the neck or back-bone; no black spots under the eyes, or on the cheeks; all of which are remarkable characteristics in the civet. Some travellers have suspected there were two species of civets; but no person has examined them with sufficient accuracy as to give a distinct description. I have seen both; and after a careful comparison, am of opinion, that they not only differ in species, but perhaps belong to different climates.

These animals have been called musk-cats, though they have nothing in common with the cat, except bodily agility. They rather resemble the fox, especially in the head. Their skins are diversified with stripes and spots, which has occasioned them to be mistaken for small panthers, when seen at a distance; but in every other respect they differ from the panther. There is an animal called the Genet, which is spotted in the like manner, whose head is nearly of the same shape, and which, like the civet, has a pouch where an odoriferous humor is formed; but this animal is smaller than our civet; its legs are shorter, and its body thinner; its perfume is very faint, and of short duration; while the perfume of the civet is very strong, and that of the zibet is so to an excess.

This humor is found in the orifice which these animals have near the organs of generation; it is nearly as thick as pomatum, and though the odour is very strong, it is yet agreeable, even when it issues from the body of the animal. This perfume of the civet must not be confounded with musk, which is a sanguineous humor, obtained from an animal very different from either the civet or zibet, being a species of roe-buck, or goat, without horns, and which has no one property in common with the civet, but that of furnishing a strong perfume.

These two species of civets have not been distinguished with precision. They have both been sometimes confounded with the weasel of Virginia, the genet, the musk-deer, and even with the hyæna. Bellon, who has given a figure and description of the civet, insists that it was the hyæna of the ancients, and his mistake is the more excusable not being destitute of some foundation. Certain it is, that most of the fables which have been related of the hyæna, took their rise from the civet. The philters said to have been obtained from certain parts of the hyæna, and their power to excite love, sufficiently indicate that the stimulating virtues of the preparations of civet, were not unknown to the ancients, and which are still used for this very purpose in the East. What they have said of the uncertainty of the sex of the hyæna, is still more applicable to the civet, for the male has no external appearance, but three apertures so perfectly similar to those of the female, that it is hardly possible to determine the sex but by dissection. The opening which contains the perfume, is situated between the other two, and in the same direct line which extends from the os sacrum to the pubis.

Another error, which has made more progress, is that of Gregoire de Bolivar, with respect to the climates in which the civet is found. After stating them to be common in Africa and the East Indies, he positively affirms they are also very numerous in all parts of South America. This assertion, transmitted by Faber, has been copied by Aldrovandus, and adopted by all the authors who have since treated of the civet. But the truth is, that they are animals peculiar to the hottest climates of the old continent, and which could not have found a northern passage into the New World; where, in fact, no civets ever existed until they were transported thither from the Philippine Islands and the coasts of Africa. As the assertion of Bolivar is positive, and mine only negative, it is necessary I should give my particular reasons, to prove the falsity of the fact. Besides my own remarks, I refer to the very words of Faber himself.[S] On this head it is to be observed, that the figure given by Faber, was left to him by Recchi, without any description[T]; and of which the inscription is, animal zibethicum Americanum; but this figure has no resemblance to the civet or zibet, and rather represents the badger; secondly, Faber gives a description and the figures of a male and female civet, which resemble our zibet; but these civets are not the same animal as that represented in the first figure; nor do they represent animals of America, but civets belonging to the old continent, of which Fabius Columna had procured drawings at Naples, and furnished Faber with their figures and descriptions; thirdly, after having quoted Bolivar respecting the climates in which the civet is found, Faber concludes with admiring Bolivar’s prodigious memory, and that he was indebted for this recital to the oral information of that gentleman. These three remarks are alone sufficient to create a suspicion respecting the pretended animal zibethicum Americanum, but what completely proves the error, Fernandes, in his description of the animals of America, flatly contradicts Bolivar, and affirms that the civet was not a native of America, but that, in his time, they had began to transport some of them from the Philippine Islands to New Spain. In fine, if we add this positive testimony of Fernandes, to that of all the travellers, who mention that civets are very common in the Philippine Islands, in the East Indies, and in Africa, not one of whom intimates having seen this animal in America, every doubt will vanish of what we advanced in our enumeration of the animals of the two continents, and it will be admitted that the civet is not a native of America, but an animal peculiar to the warm climates of the old continent, and that he was never found in the new, until after he had been transported thither. Had I not guarded against such mistakes, which are too frequent, I should have described my civet as an American animal, from its having been sent to me from St. Domingo, and not directly from Guinea, the place of its nativity, of which I was, however, assured by the letter from M. Pages which accompanied the animal. These particular facts I consider as confirmations to the general position, that there is a real difference between all the animals of the southern parts of each continent.

[S] Novæ Hisp. Anim. Nardi Antonii Recchi Imagines & Nomina, Joannis Fabri Lyncei Expositione, p. 539.

[T] Ibid. p. 465.

Both the civet and zibet are then animals of the old continent, nor have they any other external differences, besides those already pointed out; and as to their internal differences, and the structure of their reservoirs which contain the perfume, they have been so accurately described by Messrs. Morand and Peyronnie, in the Memoirs of the Academy for 1728 and 1731, that I could do little more than give a repetition of their accounts. With regard to what remains to be further observed of those two animals, as the few facts are hardly more applicable to the one than the other, and as it would be difficult to point out the distinction, I shall collect the whole under one head.

The civets, (by the plural number I mean the civet and zibet) though natives of the hottest climates of Asia and Africa, can yet live in temperate and even cold countries, provided they are carefully defended from the injuries of the weather, and supplied with succulent food. In Holland they are frequently reared for the advantage obtained by their perfume. The civet brought from Amsterdam is preferred to that which comes from the Levant or the Indies, as being the most genuine. That imported from Guinea would be the best, were it not that the Negroes, as well as the Indians, and the people of the Levant, adulterate it with the mixture of storax, and other balsamic and odoriferous drugs and plants.

Those who keep these animals collect the perfume in the following manner; they put them into a narrow cage, in which they cannot turn themselves; this cage opens behind, and two or three times in a week the animal is drawn a little out by the tail, and kept in that position by putting a bar across the fore-part of the cage; this done, the person takes out the perfume from the pouch with a small spoon, scraping all the internal parts, and then, putting the matter into a vessel, the greatest care is taken to keep it closely covered. The quantity so procured depends greatly upon the appetite of the animal, and the quality of his nourishment, as he always produces more in proportion to the goodness of his food. Hashed flesh, eggs, rice, small animals, birds, young poultry, and particularly fish, are the best, and which he most prefers; and these ought to be so varied as to excite his appetite and preserve his health. He requires but little water, and though he drinks seldom, yet he discharges urine very frequently; and even on such occasions, the male is not to be distinguished from the female.

The perfume of the civets is so strong that it communicates itself to all parts of the body; the hair and skin is impregnated with it to such a degree, that it preserves the odour for a long time after it is stripped off. If a person be shut up in a close room with one of them alive, he cannot support the perfume, it is so copiously diffused. When the animal is enraged, its scent is more violent than ordinary, and if tormented so as to make him sweat, that is also collected and serves to adulterate, or at least increase the perfume which is otherwise obtained.

The civets are naturally wild, and even ferocious; and though tameable to a certain degree, they are never perfectly familiar. Their teeth are strong and sharp, but their claws are blunt and feeble. They are light and active, and live by prey, pursuing small animals, and surprising birds. They can bound like cats, and run like dogs; and sometimes steal into yards and out-houses to carry off the poultry. Their eyes shine in the dark, and they probably see better in the night than in the day. When they fail in procuring animal food, they subsist on roots and fruits. As they seldom drink they never inhabit moist places, but cheerfully reside among arid sands and burning mountains. They breed very fast in their native climates; but though they can live, and even produce perfume in temperate climates, yet they cannot multiply. They have a voice more powerful, and a tongue less rough than the cat, and their cry is not unlike that of an enraged dog.

The odorous humor which exudes from these animals is called civet in England and France, and zibet, or algalia, in Arabia, the Indies, and the Levant, where it is more used than in Europe. It is now very little employed as a medicine, but it is still used as an ingredient in the compositions of perfumers and confectioners. The smell of the civet, though stronger, is more agreeable than that of the musk. Both, however, lost their repute when the method of preparing ambergris was discovered; and even that seems now to be proscribed from the toilets of the polite and delicate.