Buffon's Natural History. Volume 09 (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. IX.

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

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

CONTENTS
OF
THE NINTH VOLUME.

Directions for placing the Plates in the Seventh Volume.

BUFFON’S

NATURAL HISTORY.

[OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS.]

[THE LORIS.]

The Loris ([fig. 176.]) is a small animal found in Ceylon, very remarkable for the elegance of its figure, and for the singularity of its conformation: it has, perhaps, of all animals, the longest body in proportion to its bulk, having nine vertebræ in the loins, whereas other quadrupeds have only five, six, or seven. The length of the body is the natural effect of this structure, and it appears the longer for having no tail; in other respects, it resembles the maki kind, as well in the hands and feet as in the quality of the hair, the number of teeth, and the sharpness of its muzzle. Independently of these singularities, which separates this animal from the makis, he has other particular attributes. His head is entirely round; his eyes are excessively large, and very close to each other; his ears are large, round, and, in their insides, have three auricles in the shape of small shells; but what is still more singular, and perhaps unmatched in the whole tribe of animals, is that the female discharges her urine through the clitoris, which is perforated like the sexual organ of the male, and who in these two parts perfectly resemble each other.

Linnæus has given a short description of this animal, which appears to be exactly conformable to Nature. It is also very correctly delineated by Seba; and evidently appears to be the same as that which Thevenot speaks of in the following terms: “I saw, (says he) in the Mogul country, monkeys which had been brought from Ceylon; they were greatly valued on account of their size, being not bigger than a man’s fist. They were different from the common monkey, having a flat forehead, eyes round and large, and of a bright yellow colour, like those of some cats: their muzzle is very pointed: the inside of the ears is yellow, and they have no tail. When I examined them they sat erect on their hind feet, folded the others across, and looked round at the spectators without the least signs of fear.”

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 176. Loris. FIG. 177. Javelin Bat.

FIG. 178. FIG. 179.
Lame Headed Bat. Shrew Bat.

[THE JAVELIN BAT.]

AMONG the numbers of the bat species, which were neither named nor known, we indicated some by names derived from foreign languages, and others by denominations drawn from their most striking characters. We have called one the Horse-shoe Bat, from the exact resemblance the fore-part of its face bears to a horse-shoe, and the animal in question we have called the Javelin Bat, ([fig. 177.]) from a sort of membrane on its nose which perfectly resembles the head of an ancient javelin, or spear. Though this character alone is sufficient to distinguish it from all other bats, yet we may add, that it has scarcely any tail, that its hair and size are nearly like the common bat, but that instead of having six incisive teeth in the lower jaw, it has only four. This species of bat is very common in America, but is never found in Europe.

There is another bat in Senegal, which has also a membrane upon its nose, not in the form of a horse-shoe, or javelin, as in the two bats we have just mentioned, but in the shape of an oval leaf. These three bats, being of different climates, are not simple varieties but distinct and separate species. M. Daubenton has given the description of the Senegal bat, under the name of the leaf bat, in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, 1759, p. 374.

Bats which have great affinities to birds, by the power of flying, and the strength of their pectoral muscles, seem to resemble them still more in these membranes, or crests, which they have on their faces. These redundant parts, which, at first sight, seem only to be superfluous deformities, are real characters which fill up the visible shades between these flying quadrupeds and birds; for most of the latter have crests, or membranes, about their beaks and heads, which seem in every respect as superfluous as those of the bats.

SUPPLEMENT

WE have received from M. Pallas the figures and descriptions of two bats hitherto unknown to naturalists; the first he calls the cephalote, or large-headed bat, ([fig. 178.]) from its head being so very large in proportion to its body. This bat M. Pallas says is found in the Malacca islands; and from his finding but one fœtus in a female, which was sent to him to Amsterdam, and which he dissected, he concludes they have but one young at a time: this species differs also from all others in the teeth, which in some measure resemble those of the mouse or hedge-hog; it has a short tail, situated between the thighs, a large nose and a broad muzzle; its breast is very similar to that of a bird; it is very near four inches long, and its wings extend above a foot.

The second he calls the vespertilio soricinus, or shrew bat ([fig. 179.]); this one has no tail, and carries a peculiar membrane on its nose; it is the smallest that is met with without a tail, being not more than two inches in length. This species is very common in the warm climates of America, the Carribbee Islands, and Surinam.

At the same time M. Pallas sent us the account of these animals he remarked that we were in an error in our former description of the javelin bat, by confounding it with the American bat, mentioned by Seba, he, from a careful examination, being convinced of their being different species; and we feel ourselves indebted to this gentleman for the pains he has taken to rectify our mistake.

[THE SERVAL.]

THIS animal, which was kept alive several years in the royal menagerie, by name of the tiger-cat, seems to be the same with that described by the gentlemen of the Academy, under the denomination of chat-pard; and we should have still remained ignorant of its true name if the Marquis de Montmirail had not discovered it in an Italian book of travels which he has translated, and sent the following extract: “The maraputé, which the Portugueze in India, called serval (says P. Vincent-Marie) is a ferocious animal, larger than the wild cat, and something less than the civet, from which last he differs by his head being rounder and thicker, and his face sinking in about the middle. He resembles the panther in the colour of his hair, which is yellow on the head, back, and sides, and white under the belly; also by the spots, which are distinct, equally distributed, and a little less than those of the panther. His eyes are very brilliant; his whiskers are composed of long and stiff bristles; his tail is short; his feet large, and armed with long and hooked claws. He is found in the mountains of India; he is seldom seen on the ground, but remains almost continually on high trees, where he catches birds, which are his principal food. He leaps as nimbly as a monkey, and goes from one tree to another with such address and agility and passes over a great space in so short a time, that he may be said only to appear and disappear; he is ferocious in his nature, but flees at the sight of man, unless irritated, or his nest attacked, when he flies at the offender, and bites and tears nearly like the panther.”

Neither captivity, nor good nor bad treatment, will tame or soften the ferocity of this animal. That which we saw in the menagerie was always ready to rush on those who came near him: we could neither take a design nor a description of him, otherwise than betwixt the bars of his cage. He was fed with flesh, like the panther and leopard. This serval, or maraputé of Malabar and India, seems to be the same animal as the tiger-cat of Senegal and the Cape of Good Hope, which, according to the testimony of travellers, resembles our cat in its shape, and the tiger (that is the panther or leopard) by the black and white spots of his fur. “This animal (say they) is four times larger than a cat; is of a very voracious nature, and feeds on monkeys, rats, and other animals.”

From the comparison which we made of the serval and the chat pard, described by the gentlemen of the Academy, we discovered no other difference than the long spots on the back, and the rings on the tail of the latter, which the serval has not. The spots on the back of the serval are closer than those on the other parts of his body; but these little disagreements are so slight that we cannot doubt of the identity of the species of these two animals.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 180. Ocelot.

FIG. 181. Jackal.

[THE OCELOT.]

OCELOT is an abbreviation of tlalocelotl, the name of this animal in Mexico, its native country. It is ferocious and carnivorous, and may be ranked with the jaguar and cougar, for it is very nearly the same size, and resembles them in figure and dispositions. A male and female were shewn at the fair of St. Ovide, in September 1764. They came from the neighbourhood of Carthagena, and had been taken from their mother in the month of October, 1763. They became so strong and cruel at the age of three months as to kill and eat the bitch which had nursed them. When we saw them, at a year old, they were about two feet long, and they had then, probably, not attained more than one half, or two-thirds, of their growth. These animals were shewn by the name of the tiger-cat, but we have rejected this denomination as precarious and confused, especially as the jaguar, serval, and the margay, or Cayenne cat, were sent to us under the same denomination, although those three animals are very different from each other, as well as from the one we are at present treating of.

The first author who mentions this animal in a distinct manner is Fabri. He caused Recchi’s designs of it to be engraven, and composed his description from them. He gives also a kind of history of him from the writings and information of Gregoire de Bolivar. I made these observations with a view to throw light on the circumstance which had led all the naturalists into an error, and by which I acknowledge I was also deceived. This circumstance is to know whether the two animals designed by Recchi, the first by the name of tlatlauhquiocelotl and the second by that of tlacoozlotl, tlalocelotl, and afterwards described by Fabri as different species, are not the same animal. They were considered as distinct animals, notwithstanding the resemblance of their figures, because their names, and even descriptions, were different. I then supposed the first might be the same as the jaguar, and therefore gave him the Mexican name of tlatlauhquiocelotl, which I am now convinced does not belong to him; and since I have seen both the male and female, I am persuaded, that the two described by Fabri, are only the same animal, of which the first is the male, and the second the female. This error could only have been discovered by such a chance as we had of examining both the male and the female together. Of all animals whose skins are spotted, the robe of the male ocelot ([fig. 180.]) is certainly the most beautiful, and most elegantly varied. Even the skin of the leopard does not come near it for the liveliness of its colours, and the regularity of its marks; and far less those of the jaguar, panther, and ounce. The colours of the female ocelot are much weaker, and the design less regular; and this apparent difference it was that deceived Recchi, Fabri, and others, and was the occasion of their considering them as different species.

When the ocelot has arrived at its full growth, he is, according to Bolivar, two feet and a half high, and about four feet long. The tail, though of a good length, does not touch the ground when hanging down, and consequently is not more than two feet long. This animal is very voracious, but at the same time exceedingly timid. He seldom attacks the human species, and is terrified at the sight of a dog. When pursued, he flies to the forests, and climbs up a tree for safety, where he also sleeps and watches for small animals, on which he springs when he sees them within his reach. He prefers blood to flesh, and for this reason he destroys a great number of animals; for instead of satisfying his hunger by devouring their flesh, he only quenches his thirst by sucking their blood.

In a state of captivity he preserves his savage nature: nothing can soften his ferocious disposition, nor calm his restless motion, which makes it necessary to confine him constantly in a cage. “After these young animals (says M. de l’Escot) had devoured their nurse, I confined them in a cage, and had them fed with fresh meat, of which they eat from seven to eight pounds a day. The male had a singular superiority over the female, for however hungry the latter might be, she never touched any of the food until he was satisfied, or such pieces as he gave her, having previously rejected them. I several times gave them a live cat, whose blood they sucked until the animal died, but they never eat any of their flesh. I put two live kids on board the vessel for their subsistence, for they neither eat, nor touched boiled nor salted meat.”

From the testimony of Gregoire de Bolivar, these animals commonly produce but two young ones at a birth, which M. de l’Escot seems to confirm, by saying, he had killed the mother before the two ocelots we have been speaking of, were taken away.

[THE MARGAY.]

THE Margay is much smaller than the ocelot. He resembles the wild cat in the size and shape of his body, only his head is more square, his snout and tail longer, and his ears more rounded; his hair also is shorter than that of the wild cat, and he has black streaks and spots on a yellow ground. He was sent us from Cayenne by the name of the tiger-cat, and, in fact, he partakes of the nature of the cat, jaguar, and ocelot, animals to which the name of tiger has been affixed in the New Continent. According to Fernandes, when this animal has arrived at its full growth, it is not quite so big as the civet; and, according to Marcgrave, whose comparison seems more just, he is about the size of a wild cat, which he also resembles in his natural habits, living upon fowls and small animals. He is very difficult to tame, and never completely loses his natural ferocity. He varies greatly in his colours, though they are commonly such as we have described. This animal is very common in Guinea, Brasil, and all the other provinces of South America. It is probable that the pichou of Louisiana is the same animal, but the species is less common in temperate than in hot climates.

If we recapitulate those cruel animals, whose robes are so beautiful, and whose natures are so malign, we shall find the tiger, panther, leopard, ounce, and serval, inhabit the Old Continent; and the jaguar, ocelot, and margay, natives of the New. These three last appear to be miniatures of the former, and which, having neither their size nor strength, are as timid and cowardly in proportion as the others are bold and intrepid.

There is another animal of this class which the furriers call Guepard. We have seen many of their skins, and they have a resemblance to the lynx in the length of the hair; but the ears not being terminated by a brush of hair, the guepard cannot be a lynx. Neither is he a panther nor a leopard; for his hair is not so short as that of those animals, and he differs from all of them by a kind of mane, about four or five inches long on his neck, and between his shoulders. The hair on his belly is also three or four inches long, and his tail much shorter in proportion than that of the leopard, panther, or ounce. He is nearly of the size of the last animal, not being above three feet and a half long. He is of a very pale yellow colour, sprinkled with black spots like the leopard, but closer to each other, and much smaller.

I thought this animal might be the same as that which Kolbe mentions by the name of the tiger-wolf. He is common in the countries bordering on the Cape of Good Hope. He remains all the day in the clefts of the rocks, or in holes which he digs in the ground. In the night he seeks for prey, but as he howls when in search of game, he warns men and animals of his approach; so that it is very easy to avoid, or to kill him. The name guepard, is apparently derived from the word lepard; the mode in which the German and Dutch spell leopard. We have also observed there are many varieties in this species, both in respect to the ground colour, and that of the spots; but every guepard has the common character of long hairs on the belly, and a mane on the neck.

SUPPLEMENT

M. de la BORDE, in treating of the tiger-cat of Cayenne, says, he has a skin spotted very much like that of the ounce; that he is smaller than the fox, but whom he much resembles in habits and disposition; that he generally resides in the woods, and lives chiefly on the game which he destroys; as he climbs trees with great facility, he seizes their young in their nests, and upon the branches of trees he lies in wait for his prey; he rather leaps than walks, and yet does not proceed very fast; that at Cayenne they keep these animals chained in their houses; and the utmost degree they seem to be tamed, is to suffer themselves to be stroked on the back; they are there fed with fish or flesh, and will not take any other kind of food; and that they bring forth as well in the winter as summer, and generally two at a time.

M. Colinson mentions another species of tiger-cat as a native of Carolina, and of whom he has given me the following description: "The size of the male was nineteen inches from the nose to the tail; the latter of which was four inches long, and was encircled with eight white rings; his principal colour was a light brown mixed with grey, with black stripes along his sides; his belly was inclined to white sprinkled with black spots, as were also his legs, which were very slight; his ears were very open and covered with hair; under his eyes were two large black spots, and beneath them a tuft of stiff black hairs. The female was of a less make; she was more inclined to red, and had no black spots, except a single one on the belly."

[THE JACKAL, AND THE ADIL.]

We are not certain whether these two names denote animals of different species; we only know that the jackal ([fig. 181.]) is larger, more ferocious, and more difficult to be tamed, than the adil; but in other respects they bear a perfect resemblance. The adil, therefore, may possibly be the jackal become smaller, weaker, and more gentle, than the wild race, from being tamed and rendered domestic; for the adil is nearly the same, with respect to the jackal, as the lap-dog, or the little water spaniel, is to the shepherd’s dog. However, as this fact is only exemplified in a few particular instances; as the jackal is not, in general, domestic like the dog, and, as such great differences are seldom found in a free species, we are inclined to believe that the jackal and the adil are really two distinct species. The wolf, the fox, the jackal, and the dog, though they approach very nigh each other, form four distinct species. The varieties in the dog species are very numerous; the greatest part of which seems to proceed from their domestic state, to which they have been so long subjected. Man has multiplied the race in this species by mixing the great with the small, the handsome with the ugly, the long haired with the short, &c. But there are many varieties in the dog species, independently of those races produced by the care of man, which seem to derive their origin from the climate. The English bull-dog, the Danish dog, the spaniel, the Turkish dog, the Siberian dog, and others, derive their names from the countries of which they are natives; and there seems to be greater differences between them than between the jackal and the adil. The jackals, therefore, may have undergone several changes from the influence of different climates; and which supposition corresponds with the facts we have collected. From the writings of travellers it appears, that there are different sized jackals in all parts, that in Armenia, Silesia, Persia, and in all that part of Asia, called the Levant, where this species is very numerous, troublesome, and very hurtful; they are generally about the size of our foxes; but their legs are shorter, and the colour of their hair is of a glossy and bright yellow; and this is the reason why they have been called the yellow, or golden wolf. This species seem to have undergone many varieties in Barbary, the East Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, and in other provinces of Africa and Asia. In these hot countries they are large, and their hair is rather of a reddish brown than of a beautiful yellow; and some of them are of different colours. The species of the jackal is spread all over Asia, from Armenia to Malabar; and is found also in Arabia, Barbary, Mauritania, Guinea, and at the Cape of Good Hope. It seems to supply the place of the wolf, which is wanting, or at least, is very scarce in all these hot countries.

However, as both the jackal and the adil are found in the same countries; as the species cannot have been altered by a long continuance in a domestic state, and as there is always a considerable difference in the size, and even in the dispositions of these animals, we shall look on them as distinct species, until it be proved that they intermix and produce together. Our presumption on the difference of these two species is the better founded, as it seems to agree with the opinion of the ancients. Aristotle, after having spoken of the wolf, the fox, and the hyæna, gives some obscure intimations of two other animals of the same genus, one by the name of the panther, and the other by that of the thos. The translators of Aristotle have interpreted panther by lupus canarius, and thos by lupus cervarius; that is, the dog-wolf and the stag-wolf. This interpretation sufficiently indicates, that they considered the panther and thos to belong to the same species. But I observed, under the article lynx, that the lupus cervarius of the Latins is not the thos of the Greeks. This lupus cervarius is the same as the chaus of Pliny, which is our lynx, and which has not a single character that agrees with the thos. Homer, when painting the valour of Ajax, who singly rushes among a band of Trojans, in the midst of whom Ulysses, wounded, was engaged; compares him to a lion that suddenly springs on a troop of the thos, surrounding a stag at bay, disperses and drives them away as mean and contemptible animals. This word, thos, the commentator of Homer interprets by that of panther, which he says is a kind of weak and timid wolf: thus, the thos and panther have been considered as the same animal by some of the ancient Greeks. But Aristotle seems to make a distinction between them, without, however, giving them any distinct characters. “The thos (says he) have their internal parts like those of the wolf; they copulate like dogs, and bring forth two, three, or four young ones at a time, which are born with their eyes shut. The body and tail of the thos are longer than those of the dog; his legs are shorter, but that does not prevent him from being as swift, and he can spring much further. The lion and the thos are enemies, because they both live upon flesh, and seek their food from the same source; hence disputes arise between them. The thos never attacks, and is but little afraid of the human species. He fights with the dog and the lion, whence the lion and the thos are never seen in the same places. The smallest thos is esteemed the best. There are two species of them, and some authors even make three.[A]” This is all Aristotle says concerning the thos, and he speaks still less about the panther; for he mentions it but in one single passage in the 35th chapter of the sixth book of his History of Animals, and there says, “the panther produces four young ones at a time, which are born with their eyes shut like young wolves.” By comparing these passages with that of Homer, and other Greek authors, it seems almost certain, that the thos of Aristotle is the great jackal, and that the panther is the little jackal, or the adil. We find, that he admits the existence of two species of thos, and that he speaks of the panther but once, and that when treating of the thos. It is therefore very probable, that this panther is the small thos; and this probability seems to become almost a certainty by the testimony of Oppian, who places the panther among the number of small animals, such as the cat and dormice.”

[A] Arist. Hist. Anim.

Thus, then, the thos is the jackal, and the panther the adil, and whether they make two different species, or but one, it is certain that every thing which the ancients have said of the thos, or panther, applies to the jackal and the adil, and to no other animal. If, therefore, the true signification of these names have not been known till now, or, if they have been misinterpreted, it is because the translators were unacquainted with these animals, and that our modern naturalists were not better informed.

Though the species of the wolf approaches very near to that of the dog, yet the jackal finds a place between them both. The jackal, or adil, as Belon remarks, is an animal between the wolf and the dog. With the ferocity of the wolf he joins a little of the familiarity of the dog; his voice is a kind of howl mixed with barking and groaning. He is more noisy than the dog, and more voracious than the wolf. He never stirs out alone, but always in flocks of twenty, thirty, or forty. They collect together every day to go in search of their prey. They live principally on small animals, and make themselves formidable to the most powerful by their number. They attack every kind of cattle or poultry almost in the presence of men. They boldly enter stables, sheep-folds, and cow-houses, without any signs of fear, and when they cannot meet with any thing better, they will devour boots, shoes, harnesses, &c. and what they have not time to consume they take away with them. When they cannot meet with any live prey they dig up the carcasses of men and animals. The inhabitants are obliged to cover the graves of the dead with large thorns, to prevent these animals from scratching and digging up the bodies, for their being buried very deep in the earth is not sufficient, to prevent them from accomplishing their purpose. Numbers of them work together in this, and they accompany their labour with a doleful cry; when they are once accustomed to human bodies they search out burial places, follow armies, and keep close to the caravans. They may be stiled the ravens among quadrupeds, for they will eat the most infectious flesh. Their appetite is so constant, and so vehement, that the driest leather, skins, flesh, excrements, or the most putrified animal, is alike welcome to them. The hyæna has the same taste for putrid flesh, and also digs bodies out of their graves, on which account, though very different from each other, they have often been confounded. The hyæna is a solitary, silent, savage animal, which, though stronger and more powerful than the jackal, is not so obnoxious, and is contented with devouring the dead, without troubling the living, while all travellers complain of the cries, thefts, and gluttony of the jackal, who unites the impudence of the dog with the cowardice of the wolf, and participating of the nature of each, seems to be an odious animal composed of all the bad qualities of both.[B]

[B] There is one remarkable circumstance respecting the skin of the jackal, which Buffon has omitted; it is a great spot of a dark grey colour, formed like a lancet, the point of which is turned towards the tail of the animal; this spot is of a darker brown when the jackal is young. Sparman saw the fœtus of a jackal which was of a beautiful colour; but the spot on the back was of a deep brown.

[THE ISATIS.]

IF a number of general resemblances, and a perfect conformity of internal parts, were sufficient to constitute unity of species, the wolf, the fox, and the dog, would form but one, for the resemblances are more numerous than their differences, and their internal parts are entirely similar. These three animals, however, form three species, not only distinct but sufficiently distant to admit intermediate ones. The jackal is an intermediate species between the dog and the wolf; and the isatis finds room between the fox and the dog. This animal has till now been regarded as a variety in the fox species, but the description given by Gmelin clearly proves them to be two different species.

The isatis is very common in all the northern countries adjacent to the frozen sea, and but rarely found on this side the 69th degree of latitude. He perfectly resembles the fox in the form of his body, and the length of his tail; but his head is more like that of a dog. His hair is softer than that of the common fox, and is sometimes white, and sometimes of a bluish ash. His head is short in proportion to his body; it is broad towards the neck, and terminates in a sharp-pointed snout. His ears are almost round. He has five toes and five claws on the fore-feet, and only four on the hind ones. The penis of the male is scarcely thicker than a quill; the testicles are as big as almonds, and so thickly covered with hair that it is difficult to perceive them. The hair on every part of the body is about two inches long, smooth and soft as wool. The nostrils, and under lip, have no hair on them, and the skin is black.

The stomach, intestines, viscera, and spermatic vessels of both male and female, are like those of the dog, and the whole skeleton entirely resembles that of a fox.

The voice of the isatis partakes of the barking of a dog and the yelping of a fox. Those who deal in furs distinguish two animals of this kind, the one white, and the other of a bluish ash-colour; the last are the most valuable. This difference in the colour is not sufficient to constitute two different species, for experienced hunters assured M. Gmelin that they have found in the same litter some of the young ones white and others ash coloured.

The isatis inhabits the northern climates, and prefers those countries which border on the frozen sea and the banks of the rivers which fall into it. They are found in the coldest, most mountainous, and most barren parts of Norway, Lapland, Siberia, and even Iceland. These animals copulate in the month of March, and being formed like the dog they do not separate for some time. The females continue in heat from fifteen days to three weeks, and after that time they retire into the holes, or burrows, which they have previously prepared. They make several passages to these burrows, which they keep very clean, and furnish with moss for their greater convenience. The time of gestation, like that of the bitch, is about nine weeks. They litter about the latter end of May, or beginning of June, and commonly produce from six to eight at a time. Those which are yellow when first littered become white as they grow up, and those which are blackish change to an ash. When young their hair is very short. The mother suckles them five or six weeks, after which time she drives them out of the burrow, and teaches them to seek for their own nutriment. By September their hair attains the length of half an inch, and it is then entirely white, excepting a longitudinal brown streak upon the back, and another across the shoulders; it is then called vulpis crucigera, or the crost fox; but this brown cross disappears before the winter, when the whole body of the animal is white, and the hair about two inches long. In May their hair begins to fall off, and continues to do so until July, by which time they have entirely shed their coats, so that their fur is only valuable in winter.

The isatis lives upon rats, hares, and birds, which he catches with as much subtlety as the fox. He plunges in the water, and traverses the lakes in search of water-fowl and their eggs: and the only enemy he has to dread in the desart and cold countries, is the glutton. As the wolf, the fox, the glutton, and other animals which inhabit the northern parts of Europe and Asia, have passed from one continent to the other, and are to be found in America; we must therefore conclude the isatis is to be met with in the New Continent, and I am inclined to believe that the grey fox of North America, which Catesby has given the figure of, may possibly be the isatis, instead of a simple variety in the species of the fox.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 182. Glutton.

FIG. 184. Kmeajou. FIG. 183. Carcajou.

[THE GLUTTON.]

THE body of the Glutton ([fig. 182.]) is thick, and his legs short. He is somewhat of the form of a badger, but nearly as thick again. His head is short, his eyes small, his teeth very sharp and strong, his tail rather short, and covered with hairs to its extremity. He is black along the back, and of a reddish brown on the sides and flanks. His fur is exceedingly beautiful, and much valued. This animal is very common in Lapland, and in all neighbouring countries of the Northern Seas, both in Europe and Asia. He is called carcajou in Canada, and in the northernmost parts of America. It is also highly probable that the animal of Hudson’s Bay, which Edwards has called the quick hatch, or wolverin, is the same as the carcajou of Canada, or the glutton of the northern part of Europe. That also which Fernandes has mentioned, by the name of tepeytzcuitli, or the mountain dog, is, probably, of the glutton species, and which may possibly be dispersed as far as the desart mountains of New Spain.

Olaus Magnus seems to be the first who has mentioned this animal. He says, that it is of the size of a large dog, that his ears and face are like those of the cat; the feet and claws very strong; the hair brown, long, and tough; and the tail bushy, like that of a fox, but much shorter. According to Scheffer, the head is round; the teeth strong and sharp, like those of the wolf; the hair black, the body very broad, and the feet short like those of the otter. La Hontain, who is the first that speaks of the carcajou of North America, says, “Figure to yourself an animal of double the size and thickness of a badger, and you have a perfect resemblance of this animal.” According to Sarrazin, who possibly only saw a young carcajou, its body is only two feet long, and its tail eight inches. “It has (says he) a very short and very thick head; its eyes are small; its jaws very strong and furnished with thirty-two sharp teeth.” The young bear, or young wolf, of Edwards, which seems to be the same animal, was, according to him, as thick again as a fox; its back was crooked; its legs short; its belly almost trailing on the ground; and its tail of a middling length tufted towards the end. All agree that this animal is a native of the most northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America. Gmelin is the only one who affirms, that it travels even into hot countries. But this assertion appears very dubious, if not absolutely false. Gmelin, like many other naturalists, has perhaps confounded the hyæna of the South, with the glutton of the North, which bear some resemblance in their natural habits, especially that of voracity; but in every other respect they are entirely different.

The legs of the glutton are not formed for running; he cannot even walk except slowly; but cunning supplies the deficiency of swiftness. He conceals himself to watch for his prey; and to seize it with greater security he climbs up trees, from which he darts even on the elk and rein-deer, and fastens himself so strongly with his claws and teeth on their backs that all their efforts cannot remove him. The poor animal thus attacked, in vain flies with its utmost speed, in vain rubs himself against trees, to obtain deliverance from this cruel enemy; all is useless; fastened on his back or loins the glutton persists in digging into his flesh, and sucking his blood, till the animal, fainting with loss of blood, sinks a victim to his tormentor, when the glutton devours his flesh with the utmost avidity and cruelty; and several authors affirm, that it is almost inconceivable the length of time he will continue eating, or the quantity of flesh he will devour.

The accounts of travellers are doubtless exaggerated; but if we even retrench a great part of their recitals, there will still remain sufficient to convince us that the glutton is much more voracious than any other beast of prey; and from this circumstance he has, not unjustly been denominated the quadruped vulture. He is more insatiable, and commits greater depredations than the wolf; and would destroy every animal, if he had sufficient agility, but he is reduced to drag himself heavily along; and the only animal he is capable of overtaking is the beaver, whom he easily destroys. He even attacks that animal in his hole and devours both him and his young, unless they get to the water, in which case the beaver escapes his enemy by swimming, for the glutton stops his pursuit to feed on the fish he can find. When deprived of living food, he goes in search of carcases, scratches up the graves, and devours the flesh of dead bodies.

Although this animal is subtle and uses every art to conquer others, he does not seem to have the least instinct for his own preservation. This indifference, which seems to shew imbecility, is perhaps occasioned by a different cause; for it is certain the glutton is not a stupid animal, since he readily finds means to satisfy his perpetual appetite; he does not want for courage, since he attacks every animal indifferently that comes in his way, and does not fly at the sight of man, nor even shew the least mark of fear. But this negligence for his own safety does not arise from an indifference for his preservation, but from a habit of security. He is almost a stranger to men, for being a native and resident of desart countries where they seldom come, when he does meet them, he has no reason to take them for enemies; besides, in every contest with other animals he is certain of conquest; and therefore he moves with confidence, and has not the least idea of fear, which supposes some foreproved misfortune, or some experience of weakness and inability. We have an example of this intrepidity in the lion, who never turns his back on man, at least till he has tried his strength; so the glutton traverses the snow, in his own desart climate, in perfect security. In those regions he reigns supreme, as does the lion in the forests and burning sands; and if not like him, from superior prowess, he is no less so from the weakness and timidity of those with whom he has to contend.

The isatis is not so strong, but much swifter than the glutton; he serves the latter as a purveyor, for the glutton follows him in his pursuit of animals, and often deprives him of his prey; for as soon as he approaches, the isatis, to avoid his own destruction, takes to flight, and leaves to his pursuer what he has not had time to devour. Both these animals burrow under ground; but in every other habit they differ. The isatis will associate and often go in company; while the glutton always moves alone, or at most only with his female; indeed the male and female are frequently found together in their burrows. The most fierce dogs are averse from attacking the glutton, as he defends himself with his teeth and feet, and often mortally wounds them; but as he cannot escape by flight, when once beset it is not long before he is subdued.

The flesh of the glutton, like that of every other voracious animal, is very bad food. He is only hunted for his skin, which makes beautiful fur, not inferior to the sable and black fox. Some of them, when well-dressed, has a more beautiful gloss than any other skin, and is by no means inferior in appearance to a rich damask.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 185. Potot. FIG. 186. Chinch.

FIG. 187. Conepate. FIG. 188. Zorille.

[THE STINKARDS.]

THESE animals are found in every part of South America; but they have been very indistinctly described by travellers, and not only confounded with each other, but also placed with animals of a very distinct species. Hernandes has very clearly indicated three of these animals; the first he calls by its Mexican name ysquiepatl, and which is the same animal that Seba has given a figure of in his works, and is called squash in New Spain. The second Hernandes also denominates by the same name, (ysquiepatl) and which in South America is called the skink. The third he styles conepate, and which has been mentioned by Catesby, under the appellation of the American pole-cat, and by M. Brisson, by that of the striped pole-cat. Besides those mentioned by Hernandes, there is a fourth kind of these animals called zorille, in Peru, and in some parts of the Spanish settlements in India.

We are indebted to M. Aubry for the knowledge of the squash, the skink, and the zorille; the two last may be regarded as originals, as we do not meet with their figures in any other author.

The first of these animals came to M. Aubry under the name of pekan, the Devil’s child, or the wild cat of Virginia. I perceived it was not the real pekan, but the same animal that Hernandes has described by the name of ysquiepatl, and which has been indicated by travellers by the name of squash, or potot. ([fig. 185.]) It is about sixteen inches long; its legs are short, its muzzle rather pointed, its ears small, its hair of a deep brown, and its claws black and sharp. It chiefly dwells in the hollows and clefts of rocks, where it brings forth its young. It lives upon small animals, birds, &c. and often steals into a farm yard, where it kills the poultry, but eats only their brains. When it is pursued or offended, it calls up the most diabolical scents to its defence, and sends forth such a horrid stench, that it is dangerous for men or dogs to approach it. Its urine is apparently infected with this nauseous vapour, but which does not seem habitual to it. “I had one of these animals sent me from Surinam, (says Seba) which I kept alive in my garden during the summer; I fastened it with a small chain; it never attempted to injure any person; and when properly fed it might be managed like a little dog. It burrowed in the earth with its snout, assisted by its two fore-paws, the claws of which were long, and turned backwards: in the day-time it concealed itself in the hole it had dug; at night it came out, and after having cleaned itself it continued constantly running backwards and forwards, as far as its chain would permit. It only eat as much food as would satisfy its hunger; it never touched flesh nor bread, but seemed principally fond of caterpillars, spiders, worms, &c. One morning, towards the end of autumn, it was found dead, unquestionably from not being able to endure the cold. The hair along its back was of a deep chesnut; its ears were short, the fore-part of its head round, and of a lighter colour than that on the back; on the belly it was yellow. Its tail was of a middling length, covered with a brown and short hair, annulated with small rings.” Although the description and figure given by Seba agrees with that of Hernandes, we must, however, doubt their both being the same animal, since Seba does not make any mention of its detestable scent; and it is difficult to conceive it possible for him to have kept such a stinking animal a whole summer in his garden, without speaking of the inconvenience that would arise from such a circumstance; and we might suppose that the animal described by Seba was a different one from that mentioned by Hernandes; this suspicion, which at first sight seems to be well founded, must be entirely obviated, when it is known that this animal only sends forth this infectious scent when pursued or offended; and it has likewise been caught and tamed by many people in America.

Among the above four kinds of stinkards, which we distinguish by the names of the squash, or potot, conepate, chinch, or skink, and zorille: the two last belong to the warmest parts of South America, and may possibly be no more than two varieties, and not different species. The two first are of the temperate climate of New Spain, Louisiana, Carolina, &c. and seem to be distinct and different species from the others; particularly the squash, which has the peculiar character of having only four claws on the fore-feet, whereas all the rest have five. But in other respects these animals are all nearly alike, they have the same instinct, the same offensive scent, and only differ in size, and in the colour and length of the hair. The squash is of a pretty uniform brown colour, and its tail is not tufted like the rest. The conepate ([fig. 187.]) has five white stripes on a black ground, running longitudinally from the head to the tail. The skink, or chinch, ([fig. 186.]) is white on the back, and black on the sides, but quite black on the head, excepting a white streak from the nape of the neck to the forehead; its tail is tufted and cloathed with very long white hairs, mixed with some of a black colour.

The zorille, ([fig. 188.]) which is also called mauripita, is still smaller, and has a beautiful tail, as bushy as that of the chinch, from which he differs however in the disposition of the colours on his coat. He has several long white streaks, which run longitudinally from the head to the middle of the back, on a black ground, and others which pass transversely over the loins, the crupper, and the insertion of the tail, one half of which is black and the other white, whereas the back of the chinch is nearly all the same colour.

Kalm, speaking of this animal, says, “one of them came near the farm where I lived. It was in winter, and during the night; the dogs that were upon the watch pursued him until he discharged his urine against them. Although I was in bed, and he at that time had got to some distance, I thought I should have been suffocated, and the cows and oxen, by their lowings, shewed how much they were affected by the stench. About the end of the same year another of these animals crept into our cellar, but did not exhale the smallest scent. A foolish woman, however, perceiving him one night by the shining of his eyes, disturbed and killed him; from that moment the stench began to spread, the whole cellar was instantly filled with it to such a degree that the woman kept her bed for several days, and all the meat, bread, and other provisions in the place, were so infected that they were obliged to be thrown out of doors.”

These animals are somewhat like the European pole-cats; they also resemble them in their natural habits, and the physical results of their generation are the same. The pole-cat is the most offensive animal for its scent in this continent; it is only stronger in the stinkards, whose species are very numerous in America, whereas there is only one of the pole-cat race in all the old continent; for I do not believe, with Kolbe, that the animal he calls the stinking otter, and which seems to be a real stinkard, exists as a native at the Cape of Good Hope; and possibly Kolbe, who is not very exact, has borrowed his description from P. Zuchel, whom he has quoted as having seen that animal in Brasil. The animal of New Spain, called by Fernandes the ortohua, seems to be the same animal as the Peruvian zorille; and the tepemaxtle, mentioned by the same author, may probably be the conapate, which is found in New Spain, as well as in Louisiana and Carolina.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 190. Vison. FIG. 189. Pekan.

FIG. 191. Canadian Otter.

[THE PEKAN, AND THE VISON.]

THE fur merchants of Canada have long been acquainted with the name of pekan, without any knowledge of the animal to which it belongs. Naturalists have not even mentioned its name; and travellers have employed it to denote different animals, particularly stinkards, so that it was impossible to derive any precise knowledge of it from their erroneous remarks. The origin of the name of the vison is no less difficult to be traced than that of the pekan, and it is only said that they belong to two different animals of America. M. Aubry, in his cabinet, has two animals under this denomination, and from which, by his indulgence, we have been enabled to give a sketch of their figures, and the following description:

The pekan ([fig. 189.]) so strongly resembles the marten, and the vison ([fig. 190.]) the pole-cat, that we are inclined to consider them as varieties of those two species. They are of the same make and proportion, have the same length of tail, quality of hair, and number of teeth and claws; from which facts there is certainly sufficient reason to conclude that they are merely varieties, or at least as species approaching so near each other, that it is difficult to point out any real difference, except that the hair of the pekan and the vison is more soft, brown, and glossy, than that of the marten and pole-cat; but this difference is common to them as well as to the beaver, otter, and other animals of North America, whose fur is more beautiful than those of the same kind of animals in the north of Europe.

[THE SABLE.]

ALMOST every naturalist has treated of this animal without knowing any thing more of it than its skin. M. Gmelin is the first who has given its figure and description, from having seen two living ones at the Governor’s of Tobolski. “The sable (says he) resembles the marten in his shape and habit of body, and the weasel in the number of his teeth: he has six long incisive teeth, a little turned back, two long canine teeth in the lower jaw, and very sharp small teeth in the upper; he has very large whiskers about the mouth; and his feet are broad, and armed with five claws. These characters were common to these two sables, but one of them was of a dark brown, excepting the ears and throat, where the hair was rather yellow; the other, which was smaller was of a more yellowish tincture, its ears and throat being also much paler. These are the colours they both have in winter, and which they change in the spring, the former becoming of a yellowish brown, the other of a pale yellow. I have often admired, continues M. Gmelin, the agility of these animals. Whenever they perceived a cat they fixed themselves in an erect posture on their hind legs, as if they were preparing for an attack. Their inquietude in the night[C] was also remarkable, that being the natural time for seeking their prey, whereas in the day, especially after feeding, they generally slept an hour at a time, during which they might be taken up, rolled about, or carried to any distance without the smallest hazard of disturbing them.”

[C] This inquietude and motion during the night is not peculiar to sables: the same thing may be observed in ermines.

These animals inhabit the banks of rivers in shady places, and also the thickest woods: they leap with great ease from tree to tree, and are said to be afraid of the sun; the rays of which tarnish the lustre of their robes in a very short time. It has also, though erroneously, been asserted, that they conceal themselves in holes, and remain torpid during the winter, whereas that is the chief time for hunting them, as their skins are then in the greatest perfection. They live on rats, fish, and wild fruit. They have the same disagreeable odour common to animals of this kind, and which is strongest during their rutting season. They are most numerous in Siberia, being very few in Russia, and still less in Lapland and other northern countries. The blackest furs are the most esteemed.[D] The difference of this skin and which so particularly distinguishes it from all others, consists in the fur having no grain, but rubbed any way, is equally smooth and irresisting; whereas the furs of all other animals, rubbed against the grain, give a sensation of roughness from their resistance.

[D] Sonnini says that there is a variety of the sable, entirely white; it is very rare. Another variety is equally rare, which has a white or yellow spot under the neck.

The sable is chiefly hunted by condemned criminals, who are sent to Russia into these dreary and extensive forests; or by soldiers who are sent there on purpose. These unfortunate wretches remain there many years, and are obliged to furnish a certain number of skins annually; they only employ a single ball to kill this animal that they may damage the fur as little as possible; sometimes instead of fire-arms, they make use of the cross-bow and very small pointed arrows. As the success of this hunting requires address and great assiduity, the officers are permitted to encourage the criminals, by allowing them to share among themselves the surplus of the number they are obliged to procure; and this in a few years, frequently amounts to a considerable sum.

Some naturalists have imagined the sable to be the satherius of Aristotle, and their conjecture seems to be well founded. The fineness of the sable’s fur indicates that he often goes into the water; and some travellers assert, that the greatest numbers are found in small islands; Aristotle calls the satherius a water animal, and joins it to the beaver and the otter. We must also presume, that when Athens was in its height of magnificence, these beautiful skins were not unknown to the Athenians, and that the animal which supplied them had some name affixed to him, and we know of no one that can be applied to the sable with greater propriety than that of satherius. If it be true that the sable eats fish, and often dwells in the water, he must also have a place among the number of amphibious animals.

[THE LEMING.]

OLAUS MAGNUS is the first who has taken notice of the Leming; and all that Gesner, Scaliger, Ziegler, Johnston, and others have said respecting him, is extracted from that author. But Wormius, who made very strict researches, speaks more particularly. “The leming (says he) is of the shape of a mouse, but has a shorter tail: his body is about five inches long, and is covered with fine hair of various colours. The extremity of the upper part of the head, the neck and shoulders are black, and the rest of the body is reddish, intermixed with small black spots of various figures excepting the tail, which is brown, and not above half an inch long. Some of them have red hairs about the mouth, resembling whiskers, six of which are considerably longer than the rest. The mouth is small, and the upper lip divided like the squirrel. Two sharp, incisive, and crooked teeth, shoot from the upper jaw, the roots of which penetrate to the orbit of the eyes: in the lower jaw they have teeth conformable to the upper; a little distance from these on each side are placed three grinders. The tongue is pretty large, and extends to the extremity of the incisive teeth. The remains of the food found in the throat of this animal, induces us to imagine he ruminates. The eyes are little and black; the ears round and inclining towards the neck; the legs before are shorter than those behind; the feet are cloathed with hair, and armed with five very sharp and crooked claws; the middle claw is the longest and the fifth is like the spur of a cock, sometimes placed very high up the leg. The hair on the belly is whitish, bordering a little on yellow, &c.”

This animal, though its legs are very short, and its body thick, runs very swiftly. They generally inhabit the mountains of Norway and Lapland, from whence they sometimes descend in such numbers, that the inhabitants look on their arrival as a terrible scourge, which there is no possibility of preventing. They move, for the most part, in the night, and remain still during day. It is in vain that attempts are made to stop their progress, for though thousands are destroyed, myriads seem to succeed. They generally move in lines about three feet from each other, and exactly parallel; and their march is always directed from the north-west to the south-west. Wherever their motions are directed nothing can turn them aside; if a lake, or river, interrupts their progress, they all take to the water and swim over it; even a fire, or a well, does not turn them out of their line of direction; they boldly plunge into the flames, or leap down the well, and are sometimes seen climbing up on the other side. If they are interrupted by a boat, while they are swimming across the river, they mount directly up its sides, and the boatmen, who know how vain resistance would be, calmly suffer the living torrent to pass over, which it does without further damage; and if they meet with a stack of hay or corn, they gnaw their way through. Happily, however, they never enter an house to destroy the provisions, but consume every root and vegetable that they meet, and lay waste every garden, meadow, or field of corn that comes in their way. If a man ventures to attack one of them, the little animal is no way intimidated by the disparity of strength, but furiously flies up at his opponent, and wherever he fastens, it is not easy to make him quit his hold; and when thus attacked they have a kind of bark somewhat like that of little dogs.

An enemy so numerous and destructive, would soon render the countries where they appear utterly uninhabitable, did it not fortunately happen, that the same rapacity that animates them to destroy the labours of mankind, at least impels them to destroy each other. After committing incredible devastations, they at last separate into two armies, opposed with deadly hatred, along the coasts of the larger lakes and rivers. The Laplanders, who observe them thus drawn up, instead of considering their mutual animosities as a happy riddance of the most dreadful pest, form ominous prognostics from the manner of their engagements: they consider their combats as a presage of war, and expect an invasion from the Russians or Swedes. The two divisions, however, continue their engagements, and from that time they begin to disappear, nor is it well known what becomes of either the conquerors or the conquered. Some suppose that they rush into the sea, others that they kill themselves, as some are found hanging on the forked branches of trees; and others that they are destroyed by the young spring herbage. But it is most probable, that having consumed the vegetable productions of the country, they then fall upon and devour each other. However this may be, they die in such numbers, that their carcasses have been known to infect the air, and to produce malignant disorders. They seem also to infect the plants which they gnaw, as the cattle often die that feed in the places where they passed. In fine weather, they go in droves into the water, but no sooner does the wind rise, than they are all drowned. As the inhabitants know not from whence they come, it is a vulgar opinion that they fall from the clouds with the rain.[E]

[E] Scheffer’s Hist. Lapland, Phil. Trans. &c.

The male is generally larger, and its spots bigger than those of the female. The flesh of the lemings is horrid food, and their skins, though covered with a very beautiful fur, is of too little consistence to be serviceable.

[THE SEA OTTER.]

THEVET says, “the Saricovienne, or Sea Otter, is found by the sides of the river Plata; it is an amphibious animal, and lives as much in the water as upon land; it is full as large as a cat, its skin is a very dark grey, nearly black, and is extremely soft; its feet are webbed like those of water fowls; and its flesh is very good, and even delicate.”

Naturalists do not seem to have been acquainted with this animal, nor to have known that the carigueibeju of Brasil, which is certainly the same, had membranes between the toes, for Marcgrave, who has given a description of it, totally omits this essential character. I am also of opinion that the guachi, mentioned by Gumilla, which is a species of otter in South America, is the same as the saricovienne. Marcgrave and Desmarchais describe it to be as big as a middling sized dog: that the top of its head is round, and its nose long; that its teeth and whiskers resemble those of the cat; that it has small black eyes, round ears, five toes on each foot, with a kind of thumb shorter than the others, and all armed with brown claws; that its hair, which is short and soft, is black on the body, and has a white spot under the chin; that its voice is somewhat like that of a young dog; and notwithstanding it lives principally on crabs and fish, its flesh is very good, and its skin makes an excellent fur.

[THE CANADIAN OTTER.]

THIS Otter, ([fig. 191.]) which is larger than ours, and which must be a native of the north of Europe, as well as of Canada, occasioned me to enquire whether it was not the same animal as that called by Aristotle the latax, which, he says, is much larger and stronger than the common otter. But his observations do not entirely agree with the animal in question, and therefore as it perfectly resembles the common otter in other respects, I judged that it was not a particular species, but only a simple variety; and as the Greeks, especially Aristotle, have taken great care not to give different names, except to distinct species, we are therefore convinced that the latax is another animal. Besides, as the otters, like the beavers, are commonly larger, and their hair finer, and of a more beautiful black in America than in Europe; this Canadian otter ought, in fact, to be larger and blacker than our otter. But in attempting to discover what the latax of Aristotle might be, I conjectured that it was the same animal as Belon calls the marine wolf.

Aristotle mentions six amphibious animals, of which only three are known to us, namely, the seal, the beaver, and the otter; the three others, the latax, the satherion, and the satyrion, still remain unknown, because their names are only mentioned without any description of them. In this case, as in all those where we cannot draw any direct induction from a knowledge of the object, we must have recourse to the mode of exclusion: but we cannot make use of that mode with any success, unless we are nearly acquainted with every thing; when that is the case, we can conclude a negative from the positive, and this negative hence becomes a positive fact. For example, I believe that by long study, I have attained a knowledge of almost every quadruped. I know that Aristotle could not have had any knowledge of those peculiar to the continent of America. I also know those which are amphibious, and among these I separate those that belong to America, as the tapir, the cabiai, the ondatra, &c. and then there remains only the amphibious animals of our own continent, namely, the hippopotamus, the walrus, or sea-cow, the sea-wolf of Belon, the beaver, the otter, the sable, the water-rat, the Muscovy musk-rat, the water shrew-mouse, and we may include the ichneumon, which some have looked upon as an amphibious animal, and styled it the Egyptian otter. I retrench from this number the walrus, or sea-cow, the seal, or sea-cow, which being only met with in the northern seas, was not known to Aristotle; I also retrench the hippopotamus, the water-rat, and the ichneumon, because he speaks of them in another part of his work by their proper names; and I likewise retrench the seal, the beaver, and the otter, which are well known, and the water shrew-mouse, because it is too much like the land one to have received a different name. There then remains the sea-wolf of Belon, the sable, and the Muscovy musk-rat, for the latax, the satherion, and the satyrion. Of these three animals, the sea-wolf of Belon is the only one that is larger than the otter, therefore it alone can represent the latax; consequently the sable and the Muscovy musk-rat, must represent the satherion and the satyrion. It must, however, be perceived that these conjectures, which I believe to be well founded, are not among the number which time can elucidate, unless some Greek manuscripts shall be discovered which are unknown at present, where these names are made use of, and explained by new indications.

[THE SEAL, THE WALRUS, AND THE MANATI.]

SEAL, Walrus, and Manati, are rather generic denominations than specific names. Under that of the Seal, we shall comprehend, first, the phoca of the ancients, which is probably the same animal as the seal; 2. The common seal, which we call the sea-calf; 3. The great seal, of which Mr. Parsons has given a figure and description in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 496; and 4. The very large seal, which is called the sea-lion, the figure and description of which is given in Anson’s Voyages.

By the walrus we understand those animals commonly called sea-cows, or sea-horses. We know of two species of this animal, one found only in the northern seas, and the other only in the southern, which is called dugan or Indian walrus. And lastly, under that of manati, we comprehend those called lamantans, or sea-oxen, in St. Domingo, and other parts of South America, as well as that of Senegal, and other parts of the coast of Africa, and which seem to be only varieties of the American species.

The seal and the walrus approach nearer to quadrupeds than to cetaceous animals, because they have a kind of feet. But the manatis, which have only two before, are more of the cetaceous tribes than the quadrupeds. But they differ from every other animal by the following striking character. They are the only animals that can equally live in air and water, and consequently the only ones we can properly term amphibious. In man, and the other terrestrial viviparous animals, the foramen ovale of the heart, which permits the fœtus to live without respiration, is shut at the moment of its birth, and remains closed during life. In these, on the contrary, it is always open, notwithstanding the females bring forth their young on land; and their respiration begins and operates immediately after birth, as it does in every other animal. By means of this perpetual aperture in the septum, subsisting and permiting the communication of the blood from the vena cava to the aorta, these animals have the advantage of breathing or not at pleasure. This singular property is common to all three; but each has peculiar faculties, which we shall notice as far as possible, in the history of the different species.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 192.Seal.

FIG. 193. Walrus. FIG. 194. Manati.

[THE SEAL.]

THE Seal ([fig. 192.]) in general has a round head, like the human species; a broad muzzle like the otter; eyes large and elevated; little or no external ears, having only two auditory passages on the sides of the head; whiskers about its mouth; teeth somewhat resembling those of the wolf; the tongue forked at the point; the body, hands, and feet, covered with a short and bristly hair; no arms but two membranes, like hands, with five fingers terminated by as many claws; no legs but two feet exactly like the hands, except being larger and turned backwards, as if designed to unite with a very short tail, which they accompany on each side; the body is thickest at the breast from whence it tapers down to the tail like a fish. He is so strange an animal that he appears fictitious, and has served as a model for the poets to form their tritons, syrens, and other sea deities, whom they feigned to have the head of a man, the body of a quadruped, and the tail of a fish. In fact, he seems to reign superior in the mute empire of the sea, by his voice, figure, and intelligence, which he possesses equally with any land animal; he is so far above the order of fishes, that he seems not only to belong to a different order of beings, but to a different world. Hence though of a nature very distant from that of our domestic animals, yet he seems susceptible of a kind of education. He is reared by putting him often in water; he is taught to give a salute with his head and his voice; he will come when called, and he gives many other signs of intelligence and docility.

His brain is proportionally larger than in man: his sensations are as perfect, and his intellects as active, as those of any quadruped; both are strongly marked in his docility, his social qualities, his strong instinct for the female, his great attention towards his young, and by the expressive modulation of his voice, which is superior to that of any other animal. His body is likewise firm and large; he is very strong and armed with sharp teeth and claws. He also enjoys many particular and singular advantages. He can, with perfect ease, endure heat or cold; he feeds indifferently on grass, flesh, or fish; and he can equally live on ice, land, or in the wafer. This animal, with the walrus alone, deserves the name of amphibious. They alone have the foramen ovale open, consequently they are the only animals who can exist without respiration, the elements of air and water being equally agreeable. The otter and the beaver cannot properly be termed amphibious, as the air is their real element, for not having this aperture through the septum of the heart, they cannot remain any length of time under the water, but are obliged to quit it, or raise their heads out of it in order to respire.

But these great advantages are counter-balanced by imperfections still greater. The seal may be said to be deprived of the use of his limbs, as his arms, thighs, and legs are almost entirely shut up within his body, while nothing appears without but his hands and feet, which are, it is true, furnished with five fingers or toes, but which are scarcely moveable, being united by a strong membrane, so that they might more properly be called fins than hands and feet, being more adapted for the purpose of swimming than walking. Besides the hind feet are turned backwards, therefore entirely useless upon land, so that when the animal is obliged to move, he drags himself forward like a reptile, and with efforts much more painful, for as he cannot bend himself in an arch, like the serpent, to obtain the support of different parts, and so advance by the reaction of the ground, he would remain like a lump on the earth if it were not for his hands and tail, and with which he seizes any thing within his reach with such dexterity that he drags himself up the steepest shores, rocks, and even shoals of ice, however steep or slippery. By this method he moves with a much greater degree of swiftness than could be expected, and often, though wounded, escapes the pursuit of the hunters.

The seal is a social animal, at least great numbers generally frequent the same places. Their natural climate is the north, but they live in the temperate and even hot countries, for they are seen on the shores of almost all the seas of Europe and even in the Mediterranean; they are found also in the southern seas of Africa and America; but they are infinitely more common and more numerous in the northern seas of Asia, Europe, and America. This species varies in size, colour, and figure, according to the difference of climates. We have seen some of these animals alive, and many of their skins have been sent to us; out of these we have chosen two for our present subject; the first is the common seal of our European sea, of which there are many varieties. We have seen one, the proportions of whose body seemed to differ from any other, its neck being shorter, its body longer, and its claws larger; but these differences are not sufficient to constitute a distinct species. The second is the seal of the Mediterranean and southern seas, which we presume to be the phoca of the ancients, and a distinct species, for it differs from the others in the quality and colour of the hair, which is flowing, and almost black, whereas that of the common kind is grey, and of a bristly nature. Its teeth and ears are also different, for it has a very small external ear, which the other has not; its incisive teeth are likewise terminated with two points, while the teeth of the other are smooth and sharp, like those of the dog, wolf, and other quadrupeds. Its arms, or fins, are also situated lower, that is to say, more backward. Nevertheless, these discrepancies are, perhaps, only varieties depending on the climate, and not specific differences; especially as in places where the seals abound, there are numbers of them found larger and smaller, thicker and thinner, and of different colours according to their sex and age.

From a similarity, which appeared at first sight but trivial, and by some fugitive accounts, we were induced to suppose this second seal, or small seal, was the phoca of the ancients. We were informed that the one we had was brought from India, and very probably it came from the Levant. It was an adult, as it had all its teeth. It was about a fifth less than the full-grown seals of our ocean, and about two-thirds less than those of the Frozen Sea, for it was not above two feet five inches in length, while that described by Mr. Parsons was seven feet and a half long, though not arrived at its full growth, as it wanted several teeth. Now the characters given by the ancients of their phoca do not denote so large an animal, but agree with the small seal, which they often compare to the otter and beaver.

There is another circumstance mentioned by the ancients as belonging to the phoca, which, though false, could never have been intimated as belonging to our seals, or those of the northern seas. They say that the phoca’s hair waves like the sea, and by a natural sympathy follows its motions, lying backward when it flows and forward when it ebbs, and that this remarkable effect remains long after the skin is separated from the animal. Now this could never be attributed to our seals, nor to those of the northern seas, since the hair of both is short and stiff; while, on the contrary, it rather agrees with that of the small seal, which is longer, and of a more supple nature than the hair of the common kind. Besides, Cardan positively asserts, that this property, which had been regarded as fabulous, is found to be a fact in India. Without placing more dependance on this assertion of Cardan’s than it deserves, we must allow it indicates that this circumstance belongs to the Indian seal, though possibly it is nothing more than an electric phenomenon, the effects of which the ancients being ignorant might ascribe it to the flowing and ebbing of the sea. However this may be, the above reasons are a sufficient foundation to presume, that the small seal is the phoca of the ancients; and there is also great reason to conclude, that it is the same as that M. Rondelatius calls the Mediterranean phoca, the body of which, according to him, is much longer and smaller, in proportion, than our seal. The great seal, described by Mr. Parsons, and which, probably, came from the northern seas, seems to be a different species from the other two, for, notwithstanding it had scarcely any teeth, it was as big again, in all its dimensions, as the common kind. Mr. Parsons, as Mr. Klein judiciously remarks, speaks a great deal on the subject of this animal in a few words, and has given the following observations in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 469, p. 383, 386.

"A sea-calf was shewn at Charing-cross, London, in the month of February, 1742-3. The figures given by Aldrovandus, Johnston, and others, being designed in profile, lead us into two errors. 1st. They make the legs apparent, though they are not visible externally in any position the animal is placed; and, secondly, the hind feet are represented like two fins, whereas they are two real feet, webbed like those of a water-fowl, each having five toes, composed of three articulations, and ending with darkish-coloured claws. The claws on the fore-feet are very large and broad, nearly like those of a mole, and seem to be designed for the purposes of crawling, and partly for swimming, as between each toe there is a narrow membrane; but the membranes of the hind feet are much larger, and only serve to row the animal along when in the water. It was a female, and died in the morning of the 16th of February, 1742-3. The hairs that were about its mouth were of a horny and transparent substance; its stomach, intestines, bladder, kidneys, ureters, diaphragm, lungs, great blood-vessels, and the parts of generation, were like those of a cow: the spleen was two feet long, four inches broad, and exceedingly thin; the liver was composed of six lobes, each of which was long and thin, like the spleen; the gall bladder was very small; the heart long, and of a soft texture, having a large foramen ovale, and the fleshy parts very considerable. In the lower stomach were about four pounds weight of sharp and angular pieces of flint, which seems as if the animal had swallowed them for the purpose of grinding its food. This animal is viviparous, and suckles its young by the mamilla, like quadrupeds, and its flesh is firm and muscular. Although it had attained seven feet and a half in length, yet it was but young, as it had scarcely any teeth; and it had four small holes regularly placed about the navel, which were the preceding signs of four teats to appear hereafter."

Thus it appears there are three kinds of seals, differing from each other. The small black seal of India and the Levant; the common seal of our seas; and the great seal of the northern ocean. To the first of these, therefore, we must refer all that the ancients have written about the phoca. Aristotle was acquainted with this animal, for he has described it of an ambiguous nature, an intermediate creature between aquatic and terrestrial animals; that is, an imperfect quadruped, having no external teats for suckling its young, and only very apparent auditory passages; that its tongue is forked, and has a small tail resembling that of a stag. This entirely agrees with the seal; but he is deceived in affirming that its has no gall-bladder. Mr. Parsons, indeed says, that the gall-bladder of the great seal which he describes, was very small; but M. Daubenton found a gall-bladder in the seal which he dissected proportionable to the size of the liver; and the gentlemen of the Academy of Sciences, who also met with a gall-bladder in the seal which they dissected do not speak of its being remarkably small.

Aristotle could not have had any knowledge of the great seal of the Frozen Sea, since in the time he lived all the north of Europe and of Asia was unknown, The Romans considered Gaul and Germany as their north, and the Greeks knew still less of the animals belonging to this part of the world; it is, therefore, very probable, that when Aristotle speaks of the phoca as a very common animal, he only means the Mediterranean seal.

These three species have many properties in common with each other; the females bring forth in winter, and place their young upon some sand-bank, rock, or small island. When they suckle their young they sit upon their hind legs, and continue to nourish them in this manner for twelve or fifteen days, after which she brings them to the water, accustoms them to swim, and to search for their food; she carries them on her back when they are fatigued. As each litter does not consist of above two or three, her cares are not much divided, and the education of her little ones is soon completed. In fact, these animals are very sagacious and docile; they understand and naturally assist each other in dangers. The young ones distinguish their mother among a numerous troop; and are perfectly obedient to her call. We are unacquainted with their time of gestation; but if we judge of it from that of their growth, the length of their lives, and the size of the animal, it must be many months; the time from their birth till they attain their full growth being many years, the length of their lives must be proportionably long. I am even inclined to believe that these animals live upwards of a hundred years, for we know that cetaceous animals, in general, live much longer than quadrupeds; and as the seal is the link between both it, ought to participate of the nature of the first, and consequently live much longer than the last.

The voice of the seal may be compared to the barking of an angry dog. When young, they have a shrill note, somewhat like the mewing of a cat. Those that are taken early from their dams mew continually, and often die of hunger sooner than take the food that is offered them. They bark at and endeavour to bite those who injure them, and are more of a courageous than timid nature. Instead of being terrified at thunder and lightning, it seems to delight them; they generally come on shore in tempests and storms, and even quit their icy abodes to avoid the shock of the waves; at such times they sport in great numbers along the shore: the tremendous conflict seems to divert, and the heavy rains that fall, to enliven them. They have naturally a disagreeable scent, and which is smelt at a great distance, when there are great numbers together. When pursued they often drop their excrements, which are of a yellow colour, and of a very abominable scent. They have a prodigious quantity of blood, and being also loaded with fat, they are, consequently, very dull and heavy. They usually sleep a great deal, and very sound, and are fond of taking their repose in the sun on flakes of ice, or sides of rocks, and they may be approached very nigh without being disturbed, which is the usual method of taking them. They are very seldom secured with fire-arms, for they do not immediately die, even if shot in the head, but plunge into the sea, and are entirely lost to the hunter; therefore the general method is to surprise them when asleep, or at a distance from the sea, and knock them on the head with clubs. “They are not easily killed, and are a long time dying (says an eye-witness), for although mortally wounded, their blood nearly exhausted, and even stripped of their skins, yet they still continue alive; and indeed it is a shocking sight to see them in this condition wallowing and rolling about in their blood. These remarks were made on an animal we killed, about eight feet long; after it was skinned, and deprived of the greater part of its fat, yet it attempted to bite, notwithstanding they had given him many powerful blows over the head and nose. It even seized a cutlass with as much vigour as if it had not been wounded; after which we pierced it through the heart and liver, from whence as much blood flowed as is contained in a young ox[F].”

[F] Recueil des Voyages du Nord. tom. ii. p. 117, &c.

The hunting, or perhaps, to speak more properly, the fishing of these animals is not very difficult, and is attended with great profit, the flesh being good food, and the skin exceedingly serviceable. The Americans fill them with air, and make a kind of raft, or small boats of them: their fat yields a clear and much sweeter oil than that drawn from the porpoise, or other cetaceous animals.

To these three kinds of seals already mentioned we may, perhaps, add a fourth, described in Anson’s voyages by the name of the sea-lion. These are found in great numbers on the Magellanic coasts, and at the island of Juan Fernandes, in the South Sea. The sea-lion resembles our seal, which is very common in the same latitudes, but it is much larger, being from eleven to eighteen feet long, and from eight to eleven in circumference, when it has acquired its full growth. They are so fat that when the skin is taken off, the blubber is about a foot thick all round the body, and from a single animal more than ninety gallons of oil may be drawn. They are, at the same time, very full of blood, and which, when deeply wounded, springs out with amazing force. Upon the throat of one of these animals being cut, two hogsheads of blood were taken out, besides what then remained in its body. Their skins are covered with a short hair of a brownish colour, but blackish on the tail and feet. Their toes are united by a membrane, which does not reach to their extremity, and each of them are terminated by a claw. The sea-lion differs from the common seal not only in its size and bulk, but also by other characters. The male has a kind of thick crest, or trunk, hanging from the end of its upper jaw, about five or six inches long. This character is not seen in the females, and forms a very striking distinction between them. The strong males collect together a flock of females, and permit no other male to approach them. These animals are truly amphibious; they remain all the summer in the sea, and go upon land in the winter; at which season the females bring forth, but never produce above one or two at a litter, which they suckle.

The sea-lions, while they are on land, feed on the herbage which grows by the sides of the sea. They are of a very heavy and drowsy nature, and delight to sleep in the mire. Though very indolent and difficult to waken, yet at those times they commonly fix some as centinels near the place where they sleep; and it is said, that these centinels give loud warnings when any danger is near. Their voices are very loud and of various tones; sometimes grunting like hogs, and sometimes neighing like horses. The males often fight about the females and wound one another desperately with their teeth. The flesh of these animals is not disagreeable to eat; particularly the tongue, which is as good as that of the ox. They are very easily killed, as they cannot defend themselves, nor fly from their enemies: they are so exceedingly heavy, that they move with great difficulty, and turn themselves with still greater. Those that hunt them have only to guard against coming too near their teeth, which are very strong, and with which they inflict deadly wounds.

By comparing other observations and accounts, and from the conclusions which may be drawn from them, the sea-lion of South America, appears to be nearly the same animal as that found on the northern coasts of the same continent. The large seal of Canada, spoken of by Denis, by the name of the sea-wolf, and which he distinguishes from the common seals, may possibly be of the same species as these sea-lions. “Their young, says this author, are bigger and longer at their birth than our largest hogs.” Now it is certain that our seals are never of that size, even when full-grown. The Mediterranean seal, or the phoca of the ancients, is still less; therefore there only remains the seal Mr. Parsons has described, which agrees with that mentioned by Denis. Mr. Parsons does not say whence this great seal was brought: but whether it came from the north of Europe, or from America, it might be the same as the sea-wolf of Denis, or the sea-lion of Anson, for it appears to be of the same size, since though not nearly full-grown it measured seven feet in length. Besides the size, there is the most apparent difference between the sea-lion and the seal, namely, the male of the first has a large crest on its upper jaw. Now Mr. Parsons did not see the male; he only described the female, which had no crest, and which perfectly resembled the female sea-lion, mentioned by Anson. To these similarities Parsons adds another still more precise; he says, that the great seal which he saw had a stomach and intestines like those of a cow; and the sea-lion also mentioned in Anson’s Voyages, is described as an animal which feeds on grass during the whole summer. Hence it is very probable that these two animals are formed alike, or rather they are the same animals, and very different from other seals, who have but one stomach, and which live entirely upon fish.

Rogers had spoken of this animal nearly in the same manner as is done in Anson’s Voyages. "The sea-lion (says he) is a very strange creature, and of a prodigious bulk; I have seen some above twenty feet long, which could not weigh less than four thousand pounds. Many of them were sixteen feet long and must weigh two thousand pounds; notwithstanding which, I was surprised at the great quantity of oil drawn from these animals. Its shape is nearly like the sea-calf; but its skin is as thick as that of an ox; the hair is short and bristly; the head disproportionally large; the mouth very wide; the eyes of a monstrous size, and the nose, which resembles that of the lion, has terrible whiskers, formed of such exceedingly stiff and bristly hair, that they might be used for tooth-picks. Towards the latter end of June, these animals go upon the island of Juan Fernandes to bring forth their young; which they do at about a gun-shot distance from the edge of the sea; there they remain till the end of September, without moving out of the place, and without taking any nourishment: at least, we did not see them eat. I observed some which remained eight days in the same spot, and which would not have stirred then had they not been frightened by the report of a pistol. At the island of Lobos in the South Sea, we likewise saw several sea-lions, but a much greater number of seals."

These observations of Woods and Rogers, which agree with what is said in Anson’s Voyages, seem to be further proofs of these animals living upon grass when they are on land; for there is but little probability that they should exist three months without any food, and especially during the time they suckle their young. We find in the Collection of Voyages to the South Seas, many remarks respecting these animals; but neither the descriptions nor circumstances appear to be exact: for example, it is said, that in the Straits of Magellan, there are sea-wolves of such an enormous size, that their skins, when stretched out, were six and thirty feet wide; which is evidently an exaggeration. It is also said, that on the two islands of Port Desire, those animals resemble lions in the anterior part of their body, having a very long mane on their heads, necks, and shoulders. This is a still greater exaggeration; for the sea-lions have only a little more hair on the neck than on the rest of the body, but which is not above an inch in length. It is likewise said that there are some of these animals above eighteen feet long, many about fourteen, but most commonly not above five. This might induce us to imagine, that there are two species, the one much larger than the other, because the author does not say whether this difference proceeded from the difference in their ages, which, however, was necessary in order to prevent error. “These animals (says Coreal) keep their mouths always open. It is with great difficulty that two men can kill one of these animals even with a strong lance, which is the best weapon that can be made use of for that purpose. One female suckles four or five young ones, and beats away any other young that comes towards her; from which circumstance I conclude they bring forth four or five young ones at a litter.” This presumption seems well founded; for the great seal, described by Mr. Parsons, had four teats, situate in such a manner as to form a square about the navel. I thought it necessary to collect every circumstance relative to these animals, which are but little known; and it is much to be wished that some skilful traveller would give us a proper description of them, and particularly of their internal parts, as the stomach, intestines, &c. for, if we could rely on the testimonies of travellers, we should believe that the sea-lions belong to the class of ruminating animals; that they have several stomachs, and that, consequently, they are of a far distant species from the seal, or sea-calf, which certainly has but one stomach, and must be placed among the carnivorous animals.

[THE WALRUS, MORSE, OR SEA-COW.]

THE name of sea-cow, by which the walrus ([fig. 193.]) is most generally known, has been very wrongly applied,[G] since the animal it denotes has not the least resemblance to a cow: the denomination of sea-elephant, which others have given it is much better imagined, as it is founded on a singular and very apparent character. The walrus, like the elephant, has two large ivory tusks which shoot from the upper jaw; and its head would entirely resemble that of the elephant if it had a trunk; the walrus, however, not only wants that instrument, which serves the elephant as an arm and hand, but it is deprived of the use of its arms and legs; those members being, like those of the seal, shut up within the skin, so that nothing appears outwardly but its hands and feet. Its body is long and tapering, thickest towards the neck, decreasing by degrees, and is entirely covered with a short hair. The fingers, or toes, of the hands and feet, are covered with a membrane, and terminated by short and sharp-pointed claws. On each side of the mouth are large bristles in the form of whiskers; the tongue is hollowed, and the concha of the ears are wanting, so that, excepting the two great tusks, and the want of the cutting teeth both above and below, the walrus perfectly resembles the seal, only being much larger and stronger; the walrus is commonly from twelve to sixteen feet in length, and eight or nine in circumference; whereas the largest seals are not more than seven or eight feet. The former generally frequent the same places as the seals are known to reside in, and they are almost always found together. They have the same habitudes in every respect: but there are fewer varieties of the walrus than of the seal; and they are more attached to one particular climate, being rarely found except in the northern seas, so that the seal might be known to the ancients, but the walrus could not.

[G] Perhaps this name, as well as that of sea-calf, has been given because the one and the other have a cry which very much resembles the lowing of a cow and of a calf. Ipsis (says Pliny, speaking of the sea-calf) in somne mugitus, unde nomen vituli.

Most travellers who have visited the northern seas of Asia, Europe, and America, have mentioned this animal; but Zorgdrager seems to have spoken most clearly on this subject, for which reason I shall subjoin a translation of his remarks, which were communicated to me by the Marquis de Montmirail.

"There was formerly great plenty of the walrus and seals in the bays of Horisont and Kloch, but at present there are very few. Both of them quit the water in the summer, and resort to the neighbouring plains, where they are sometimes seen in troops of from eighty to two hundred, particularly the walrus, who will remain there several days together, till hunger obliges them to return to the sea. This animal externally resembles the seal, but he is stronger and much larger.[H] Like the seals they have five toes to each paw, but their claws are shorter, and their head shorter and rounder. The skin of the walrus is an inch thick, wrinkled, and covered with very short hair of different colours. His upper jaw is armed with two tusks, about half an ell, or an ell in length, which are hollow at the root, and become larger as the animal grows in years. Some of them are found to have but one tusk, the other being torn out in fighting with each other, or falling out through age. This ivory generally sells for a greater price than that of the elephant, as it is of a more compact and harder substance. His mouth is like that of the ox, and furnished with hairs which are hollow, pointed, and about the thickness of a straw. Above the mouth are two nostrils, through which these animals spout water like a whale, without however making much noise. Their eyes are red, sparking and inflamed during the summer, at which season the water making too powerful an impression on them, they stay more willingly on shore than at any other time. They are in great numbers about Spitzbergen. They are killed with lances, and the profit derived from their teeth and fat fully repays the trouble; for their oil is almost as much valued as that of the whale. Their two teeth are worth as much as all the oil they produce, and are preferred even to ivory. An ordinary sized tooth will weigh three pounds, and in which case the two will sell for eighteen florins, about the value of half a ton of oil, which is commonly drawn from one of them; so that the animal may be said to be worth six and thirty florins. Formerly great numbers of these animals were seen upon land; but the vessels which every year resort to those seas for the whale fishery, have so frightened them, that they are now retired to more sequestered places; and those that remain no longer go on shore in troops, but either continue in the water, or disperse themselves on different parts of the ice. When the hunter comes near a walrus, whether in the water, or on the ice, he darts a very strong harpoon at him, which, though made expressly for the purpose, often slips over his hard and thick skin; but if it penetrate, they haul the animal with the rope annexed towards the boat, kill him with a very sharp and strong lance, and afterwards tow him to the nearest shore or flat piece of ice; there flay him, and throw his skin away, as it is of no manner of use[I]. They then separate the teeth with a hatchet, or sometimes cut off the head and boil it to prevent the teeth from receiving any injury; the blubber being cut into long slices, is barrelled up and carried on board the vessels. The walrus is generally heavier than the ox, and as difficult to pursue as the whale; the skin of the latter is also more easily pierced, for a strong and sharp lance is often darted several times at the walrus without penetrating his thick skin. For this reason they always endeavour to wound him in those parts where the skin appears tight, and even take aim at his eyes; the animal, obliged by this motion to turn his head, exposes his breast or throat to the hunter, who immediately strikes in that part, and draws the lance out again as quick as possible, for fear the animal should seize it with his teeth and wound those that attack him either with his teeth or the lance, which sometimes happens. However, an attack seldom lasts long on the ice, for the walrus, whether wounded or not, soon plunges into the sea; consequently the hunters rather attack him upon land. These animals are now rarely found but in the least frequented countries, as the isle of Moffen, at the back of Worland, in the neighbourhood of Horisont and Kloch bays, and other secluded and more distant places; they also take the precaution to sleep on banks of sand, where ships dare not approach them. Those that are met with, instructed by the persecutions they have so often experienced, are so much on their guard, that they always keep pretty near to the water, and immediately plunge in on being approached. I experienced this fact myself, having met with a troop of thirty or forty on the great sand bank at the back of Worland, some of which were quite close to the water, and others at no great distance from it. We waited some hours before we went ashore, in hopes they would advance further on the plain, but as this stratagem did not succeed according to our wishes, we went on board our boats, and landed to the right and left of them; but we had no sooner set foot on shore, than they all plunged into the water, and dived to the bottom, therefore the most we were able to accomplish was the wounding of a few. Before these animals were so greatly persecuted, they advanced a good way upon the land, so that when it was high tide, they were at a great distance from the sea; and at low water being at a still greater, they were easily attacked. The hunters would then land, and march up in their front to cut off their retreat to the sea, and which they permitted with indifference; when thus assailed, each hunter generally killed one before they could regain the water; and after they had killed several, they made a kind of barrier of their dead bodies, leaving some of the men in ambush to slay those that remained; and in this manner three or four hundred were often killed. The prodigious quantity of bones spread over the shores, sufficiently prove how numerous these animals were in former times. When wounded they become extremely furious. They sometimes seize the lances, and break them in pieces with their teeth; or tear them out of the hands of their enemies, and at last, full of rage, put their head betwixt their paws, or fins, and in this manner roll into the sea. When there is a great number of them together, they are so bold as to attack the boats that pursue them, bite the boats with their teeth, and exert all their strength to pierce or overturn them."

[H] This must be understood only of the common seal, for the large species of this animal is considerably greater in its dimensions than the walrus.

[I] Apparently, Zorgdrager was ignorant that a very good hide is made of the skin of this animal. I have seen coach-harnesses made of them which were very firm and tough. Hist. of Greenland; and even at present the skins of the walrus form an important part of the exportation from the coast of Labrador.

By adding to these observations of Zorgdrager those which are in the Collection of Voyages to the North, and what are scattered in other accounts, we have a tolerably complete history of this animal. By these relations we find that this species was formerly much more diffused than at present; they were found in the seas of the temperate zones, in the Gulph of Canada, on the coasts of Acadia, &c. but they are at present confined to the frozen zones, and even in those there are but few in any of those parts which are frequented. There are very few in the Frozen Seas of Europe, and still less in those of Greenland, Davis’s Straights, and other parts of North America, the whale fishery having disturbed and driven them away. Towards the end of the 16th century the inhabitants of St. Malo found them in great numbers in the Ramée islands; and it is not a hundred years since the merchants of Port-Royal thought it worth sending to Cape Sable and Cape Fourchu to hunt these animals, but they have now entirely forsaken those climates, and are only to be found in great numbers in the frozen sea of Asia, from the mouth of the Oby to the eastern point of that continent; they are seldom seen in the temperate, and those found in the torrid zone are of a different species; they seem averse from the southern seas, and therefore are not met with towards the south pole, although the great and small seals of the north are there in great plenty.

We find, however, that the walrus can live, at least for some time, in a temperate climate. Edward Worst speaks of having seen one alive in England, which was three months old; that it was put in water for a short time only each day, and that it went upon the ground. He does not say the heat of the air incommoded it, but, on the contrary, that when it was touched it had the appearance of a robust and furious animal, and that it had a very strong respiration through its nostrils. This young walrus was about the size of a calf, and very much like a seal. Its head was round, its eyes large, its nostrils flat and black, which it opened and shut at pleasure. It had no external ears, but only two auditory passages. The mouth was small, and the upper jaw was furnished with whiskers of thick, rough, and cartilaginous hairs; the lower jaw was triangular, the tongue thick and short, and each side of the mouth armed on the inside with flat teeth. The feet were broad, and the hind part of the body perfectly resembled that of a seal. It might be rather said to crawl with this hind part than to walk; the fore-feet were turned forward, and the hind ones backward; they were all divided into five toes, and covered with a strong membrane. The skin was thick, hard, and covered with a short, soft, ash-coloured hair. This animal grunted like a boar, and sometimes cried with a deep and strong voice. It was brought from Nova Zembla, and had not any tusks, but on the upper jaw there appeared two knobs, from whence in time they would arise. It was fed with a sort of gruel made of barley or oat-meal. It followed its master when he offered it food, but always with a seeming reluctance, as it grunted all the time, and would sometimes growl at him with a degree of fury.

This account, which gives a tolerably just idea of the walrus, evinces that it can live in a temperate climate; however there is no appearance of its being able to endure a strong heat, nor of its having ever passed from one pole to the other. Several travellers have spoken of certain sea-cows they saw in India, but those were of a different species. The walrus is easily distinguished by its long tusks, a character which we find peculiar to that and the elephant.

The genital member of the male has a large bone like the whale. The female brings forth in winter upon land, or on the shoals of ice, and seldom produces more than one, which when born is about the size of a hog of a year old. We do not know how long this animal goes with young, but if we judge by the time of their growth and size, we must suppose it to be upwards of nine months. The walrus cannot continue in the water for a long time together, but is obliged to come on shore to suckle its young, and for other occasions. When they are obliged to climb up steep shores, or large pieces of ice, they make use of their teeth and hands to hold by, and drag along the heavy masses of their bodies. They are said to feed upon the shell-fish which are at the bottom of the sea, and to grub them up with their strong tusks. Others assert that they live on a sea-herb with broad leaves, and that they eat neither flesh nor fish. But I imagine all these opinions have but a weak foundation, it being probable that the walrus, like the seal, lives on prey, especially on herrings, and other small fish, for he does not eat at all when upon land, and it is chiefly hunger which obliges him to return to the sea.

[THE DUGON.]

THE Dugon is an animal which inhabits the African and Indian seas. We have only seen two heads on this subject, which resembled that of the walrus more than any other animal. It had, like that, very deep sockets for the teeth, about the length of half a foot, which might more properly be termed cutting teeth than tusks. They extend not in a direct manner from the mouth, like those of the walrus, but are much shorter and thinner, besides they are situated close to each other in the fore part of the jaw, whereas the tusks of the walrus leave a considerable space between them, and are placed at the side of the upper jaw. The grinders of the dugon likewise differ in number, shape and position, from those of the walrus, therefore we make not the least doubt but they are animals of different species. Some travellers have confounded the dugon with the sea-lion. Inigo de Biervillas says, that a sea-lion was killed near the Cape of Good Hope, which measured ten feet in length, and four in circumference. Its head was like that of a calf about a year old; it had a bristly beard; its eyes large and frightful; its ears short, its feet very broad, and its legs so exceedingly short, that its belly dragged upon the ground: he adds, that it had two tusks about half a foot long. This last, however, does not agree with the sea-lion, which has no tusks, but teeth nearly resembling those of the seal; and this difference made me imagine it was not a sea-lion but the animal we call the dugon. Other travellers seem to have indicated it by the name of the sea-bear: Spilsberg and Mandelso relate, "that there are animals on the island of St. Elizabeth, on the coast of Africa, which should rather be denominated sea-bears than sea-wolves, as their hair, colour, and head, greatly resemble those of that animal, the snout only being more pointed; that they also move like the bear, except dragging their hind legs after them; that these amphibious animals have a frightful appearance, and do not shew any fear at the sight of man: their teeth are so very strong as to bite through the shaft of a javelin; and although their hind legs appear crippled, yet they move with such swiftness that it is very difficult to come up with them." Le Guat speaks of having seen a sea-cow, of a reddish colour, near the Cape of Good Hope; its body was round and thick, its eyes full and large, long tusks, and its muzzle was turned a little upwards. A sailor assured him that this animal, of which he only saw the fore part of its body, the rest being in the water, had feet. This sea-cow of le Guat’s, the sea-bear of Spilsberg, and the sea-lion of Biervillas, seem to be the same animal as the dugon, the head of which was sent us from the isle of France, and which, consequently, is to be met with in the southern seas, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Philippine islands: as for the rest we cannot affirm that this animal, which resembles the walrus by its head and tusks, has, like that, four feet. We only presume from analogy, and the testimony of travellers, that they have those members; but as the analogy is not very great, nor the testimonies of travellers sufficiently precise to decide this point, we shall suspend our judgment thereon till we are able to obtain better information.

[THE MANATI.]

THIS animal is called in French lamantin, and supposed by some to have derived that name from the lamentable cries it makes, but which is merely fabulous, as it is only a corruption of the real word manati, which in the Spanish indicates an animal with hands.

This animal may either be called the last of beasts or the first of fishes, for, in fact, it cannot positively be pronounced either the one or the other. The manati ([fig. 194.]) partakes of the nature of the former, by its two fore-feet, or hands; but the hind legs, which are almost wholly concealed in the bodies of the seal and walrus, are entirely wanting in the manati; instead of two short feet and a small narrow tail, which the walrus carries in an horizontal direction, the manati has only a large tail, which spreads out like a fan, so that at first sight it seems as if the tail of the first was divided into three parts, and that in the latter they were all united into one; but from a more attentive inspection, and particularly by dissection, we find that there is no such union, that there are no vestiges of the bones which form the thighs and legs, and that the tail of the manati is composed of simple isolated vertebræ, like those of cetaceous animals, who have no feet. Therefore this animal partakes of the cetaceous nature in the hinder parts of its body, and of a quadruped by the two fore-feet, or hands, on each side of the breast. Oviedo seems to be the first author who has given any sort of history or description of the manati; he says, “This is a very clumsy and mishapen animal, having the head thicker than that of an ox, with small eyes, and two feet, or hands, placed near the head, which serve him for the purpose of swimming. He has no scales, but is covered with a skin or rather a thick hide: he is a peaceable animal, and feeds upon the herbage by the river sides, which he can reach without entirely quitting the water. To take the manati they row themselves in a boat, or on a raft, as near the animal as possible, and then dart a very strong arrow at him, to the end of which a long cord is fastened: feeling himself wounded he instantly swims away, or plunges to the bottom; but the cord has a cork, or piece of wood, fastened to the end of it, which serves as a buoy, and directs them which way he takes. When the animal begins to grow weak through the loss of blood, he swims towards the shore; the cord is then wound up, and the animal drawn within arm’s length of the boat, where they dispatch him with spears, &c. He is so heavy that he requires two oxen to draw him. His flesh is excellent eating, is much esteemed when fresh, but more so when cut in pieces and pickled; in which state it acquires the flavour of the tunny fish. Some of these animals measure more than fifteen feet in length by six in thickness; the body becomes narrow towards the tail, and then spreads gradually broader towards the end. He has no external ears, but only two holes for the sense of hearing: his skin is tough and hard, an inch thick, of an ash colour, and has a few scattered hairs, or bristles, on it. The female has two paps on her breast, and generally brings forth two young ones at a time, which she suckles.”[J] All these facts mentioned by Oviedo are true, and it is remarkable that Cieça, and many others after him, should affirm, that the manati leaves the water very often to feed upon land. They have been led into this error, from the analogy of the walrus and seals, which have this natural habit; but it is certain, that the manati never quits the water, and that he prefers fresh water to salt.

[J] These paps are very prominent during the time of gestation, and of suckling the young; but at other periods they are discernible only by the nipple.

Clusius saw and measured the skin of one of these animals, and found it sixteen feet and a half long, and seven feet and a half broad; the two feet were very broad, and the claws short. Gomara asserts, that he has sometimes met with them twenty feet long; and adds, that these animals frequent fresh-water rivers as well as the sea. He says, a young one was reared in a lake in the island of St. Domingo for twenty-six years; that he was so docile and tame, that he came quietly for the food which was offered to him; that he was so intelligent as to come out of the water when called, and crawl to the house to receive his victuals; that he seemed delighted with the human voice; that he was fond of children, would suffer them to sit upon his back, and carry them from one end of the lake to the other, without plunging them into the water; and that he had no kind of fear. These circumstances cannot all be true; some of them seem adapted to the fable of the dolphin related by the ancients, for the manati cannot possibly crawl on the ground.

Herrere says little with regard to this animal, and only asserts, that although very large, the manati swims with such facility, that his motion in the water is not heard; and that he immediately dives to the bottom, on hearing any noise.

Hernandes, who has given two figures of the manati, one in profile, and the other in front, adds very little to what other Spanish authors had said of it; he only mentions that there is a deformed beast called the mana’i, which inhabits the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; the descriptions of which he has chiefly taken from Oviedo; and then adds, that the hands of this animal have five nails like those of a man; that its navel and anus are wide; that the vulva of the female is like that of a woman, and the sexual organ of the male like that of a horse; that the flesh and fat are like those of a hog; that the ribs and viscera are like those of a bull; that they copulate on land, the female lying on her back, and that she brings forth but one young at a time, which is of a monstrous size at its birth. The copulation of these animals cannot be effected on land, since they are unable to walk, but it is on the contrary performed in shallow water. Binet says, that the manati is as big as an ox, and as round as a tun; that his head is small, and his tail short; that his skin is rough and thick like that of an elephant; that there are some of these animals so large, that one of them will yield more than six hundred weight of good eatable flesh; that his grease is as sweet as butter; that they delight to be near the mouth of rivers, where they browze upon the sea weeds, which grow on the banks; that at some few leagues distant from Cayenne, they are found in such numbers, that a few men expert in darting the harpoon, might get sufficient to load a vessel in one day. Father Tertre, who describes the fishery of the manati, agrees almost in every respect with the authors we have quoted; observing, however, that this animal has only four toes and four claws on each foot, or hand, and adding, that he feeds on a short vegetable which grows on the sea, and which he eats nearly in the same manner as the ox; that having pastured sufficiently, he makes to the rivers and fresh waters, where he moistens his food; and that his belly being full, he sleeps with his nose half way out of the water, so that he can be seen at a distance; that the female brings forth two young at a time, which follow her wherever she goes; and that when the mother is taken, they are sure of having the young, because they not only keep close to the body when she is dead, but even go continually round the vessel which is carrying her away. This last circumstance appears very suspicious, and is contradicted by other travellers, who assert, that the manati never brings forth more than one at a time; which is consistent with the nature of all other large quadruped or other cetaceous animals, so that analogy alone is sufficient to prevent our believing that the manati always brings forth two. Oxmelin remarks, that the tail of the manati is placed horizontally like that of the cetaceous animals, and not vertically like those of the scaly brood; that he has no fore teeth, but only a callosity as hard as a bone, with which he cuts the herbage; but that he has thirty-two grinders; that his sight is imperfect, on account of the smallness of his eyes, which have no iris and very little moisture; that he has an extremely small brain; but to remedy the defect of sight, he has a very quick ear; that he has no tongue; that the parts of generation are more like those of the human species than any other: that the milk of the female, which he asserts to have tasted, is very good; that they produce but one young at a time, which they embrace and hold with their hands; that the mother suckles it during a year, after which it is able to provide for itself: that this animal has fifty-two vertebræ; that it feeds like the turtle, but can neither walk nor crawl upon land. All these facts are very exact, and even that of the fifty-two vertebræ; for M. Daubenton in one he dissected found twenty-eight vertebræ in the tail, sixteen in the back, and six, or rather seven in the neck. This traveller is only deceived with respect to the tongue, which is not deficient in the manati, but affixed to the lower jaw almost to the extremity.

In the Voyage to the American islands, printed at Paris, 1722, we meet with a tolerable good description of the manati, and the manner in which it is taken by the harpoon. The author perfectly agrees with all the principal facts we have already mentioned; but he observes, “that this animal is become very rare in the Antilles since the coasts have been inhabited; and that the one which he saw and measured, was fourteen feet nine inches, from the muzzle to the tail: his head was very thick, with a large mouth and lips, which were furnished with coarse hairs; his eyes small in proportion to his head; and he had only two holes in the sides instead of ears; his neck was very thick and short, and but for the wrinkles occasioned by his motions, it would be impossible to tell his head from his body. Some authors pretend (he adds) that this animal makes use of his hands, or fins, to crawl upon land: I particularly endeavoured to inform myself respecting this fact, but could not hear of any person who had seen him out of water; and indeed, it is impossible for him to walk or crawl, since its fore-feet, or hands, only serve the female to hold the young while they suckle. The female has two round breasts, which I measured; they were each seven inches in diameter, and about four in their elevation: the nipple was about an inch thick; the body was eight feet two inches in circumference; the tail was like a large battledore, about nineteen inches long, fifteen inches broad at the widest part, and about three inches thick at its extremity. The skin on the back was about double the thickness of an ox’s hide, but much thinner on the belly; it was of a slate colour and of very coarse grain; the hairs, or bristles, were of the same colour as the skin, thinly scattered, but very thick, and long. This animal weighed about eight hundred pounds; and with it the young one was taken, which was nearly three feet long. A part of its tail was roasted, the flesh of which was as good and as delicate as veal. The herb upon which these animals feed is about eight or ten inches long, narrow pointed, tender, and of a fine green colour. This herb is so plenty in many places on the coasts, that the bottom of the sea has the appearance of a verdant meadow, and upon which the turtles also feed, &c.” Father Magnin de Fribourg says, that the manati feeds on such grass on the shores, as it is able to reach without quitting the water; that its eyes are not bigger than a filberd nut; that its ears are so narrow, that a needle can scarcely be passed into them; that within the ears are found two small bones, which the Indians wear about their necks; and that its cry resembles the lowing of a cow.

Gumilla states, that there are immense numbers of manati in the Great lakes of Oronooko, "These animals (says he) weigh from five to seven hundred pounds each; they feed upon grass; their eyes are small, and the holes for their ears still smaller. They pasture on the sea shores when the river is low. The female always brings forth two young ones, which she carries at her paps, and grasps them so strongly with her two hands that they cannot fall off, the milk of the female is very thick. Under its thick skin, four beds, or layers, are met with, two of which are of fat, and the other two of a very delicate and savoury flesh, which, when roasted, has the smell of pork and the taste of veal. These animals, when a storm of rain approaches, leap out of the water to a considerable height." Gumilla seems to be mistaken, as well as Tertre, in asserting that the female brings forth two young at a time, since it is almost a certainty, as has been already observed, that she produces no more than one.

Upon the whole, M. de Condamine, who favoured us with a drawing, which he himself made of the manati in the Amazon river, speaks with greater precision than any other author on the natural habits of this animal. "Its flesh and fat (says he) have a great resemblance to veal. Father Acuna makes its resemblance to the ox still more complete, by giving it horns, which Nature never provided. It is not, properly speaking, amphibious, since it cannot entirely leave the water, having only two flat fins close to the head, about sixteen inches long, and which serve the animal instead of arms and hands. It only raises its head out of the water to feed on the herbage upon the shore. That of which I drew the figure was a female; it was about seven feet and a half long, and its greatest breadth two feet: I have since seen some much larger. The eyes of this animal have no proportion to the size of its body; the orifice of its ears is still less, and only seems like a hole made by a pin. The manati is not peculiar to the Amazon river, being not less common in the Oronooko. It is also found, though less frequently, in the Oyapoc, and many other rivers in the environs of Cayenne, and on the coast of Guiana, and probably in other parts."

This is nearly all the precise matter which we can collect respecting this animal. It were to be wished that the inhabitants of Cayenne, among whom there are several admirers of Natural History, would make some observations on this animal, and give us a description of its internal parts, especially those of respiration, digestion and generation. There seems, though we are not certain, to be a great bone in the genital member, and a foramen ovale in the heart; that its lungs are of a singular conformation; and that it has several stomachs, like ruminating animals.

To conclude: the species of the manati is not confined to the seas and rivers of the New World, but exists also in those of Africa. M. Adanson saw them at Senegal, whence he brought one of their heads, which he presented to me, and at the same time communicated the following description of this animal, which he made on the spot, and which I have thought it proper wholly to transcribe. “I saw many of these animals, the largest was not more than eight feet long, and weighed about eight hundred pounds. A female, which was five feet three inches long, weighed only one hundred and ninety-four pounds. They are of a dark ash colour, and have hairs scattered over their bodies, very long, and like bristles. The head is conical, and of a middling size, with respect to the bulk of the body. The eyes are round and very small; the iris is of a deep blue, and the pupil black. The muzzle is almost cylindrical; its cheeks are nearly of an equal breadth, and the lips are fleshy and very thick. The only teeth they have either in the upper or lower jaw are grinders. The tongue is of an oval form, and joined almost to the end of the lower jaw. It is remarkable that almost every author and traveller have described this animal with ears. I have not been able to perceive a hole sufficient even to admit a small probe. It has two arms, or fins, placed close to the head, which is not distinguishable from the rest of the body by any kind of neck, nor even any apparent shoulders. These arms are nearly cylindrical, composed of three articulations, the foremost of which is flat, and like the palm of the hand, the fingers of which are only to be distinguished by four claws of a bright brownish red colour; its tail is horizontal, like that of the whale, and is partly of the form of a baker’s shovel. The female has two breasts, rather elliptic than round, placed near the arm-pits. The skin is thin on the belly, thick on the back, but thickest of all on the head. The fat is white, and two or three inches thick; the flesh is of a pale red colour, and more delicate than veal. The lolof negroes call this animal lereou; it feeds on herbage, and is to be found at the mouth of the Black Sea.”

By this description we find that the manati of Senegal does not differ in any particular from that of Cayenne; and from a comparison made of the head of the Senegal manati with that of a fœtus of the Cayenne lamantin by M. Daubenton, he presumes that they are of the same species. The testimony of travellers also agrees with our opinion; Dampier in particular speaks positively, and his observations deserve a place in our history. “It is not only in Blewfield river, which springs between the rivers Nicaraga and Veraga, that I have seen the manati: I have also seen them in the Bay of Campeachy, on the coast of Bocca del Drago, and Bocca del Toro, in the river of Darien, and in the small southern islands of Cuba: I have heard it said that there are a few found on the north of Jamaica, and many in Surinam river, which is a very low country. I have likewise seen them at Mindanea, one of the Philippine islands, and on the coast of New Holland. This animal is fond of brackish water, therefore he most commonly inhabits those rivers which border on the sea. This is possibly the reason why we never meet with any in the South Seas, where the coast is generally high, and the water very deep near land, except in the Bay of Panama; but even there the manati is not to be met with; but the West-Indies being, as it were, a great bay composed of a number of small ones, are generally low land and shallow water, and consequently afford a food which is agreeable to the manati. They are sometimes seen in salt water, sometimes in fresh, but seldom very far from shore. Those which inhabit the sea, and places where there are no rivers that they can enter, come to the mouth of the nearest fresh-water rivers which they find, once or twice in twenty-four hours. They feed on a narrow herbage which grows on the sides of the shores, especially in places where the tides or currents are not very strong. They never go on shore, but always keep in a depth of water where they can swim. Their flesh is sweet, and very good food; their skin is also of great utility. The manati and the tortoise are commonly found in the same parts of the world, and feed on the same herbage.”[K]

[K] A great number of manatis are to be found along the low and marshy coasts, and in the vast lakes of Moyacaré, the most southern part of French Guiana, above the Oyapoc. Small vessels from Cayenne go to the fishery of these animals, and bring their flesh salted, a gross aliment which is kept for the negroes. This fishery, which might become an object of important commerce, should be encouraged; it would require a small establishment upon the coast, and would facilitate the means of acquiring some knowledge of a country now unknown, and which, at the same time that it opened new sources of commerce, would prove also an inexhaustible mine of wealth to Natural History.

[THE NOMENCLATURE OF APES.]

IN the history of these animals we shall not follow the pedantic method of schools, which lays down arbitrary maxims as real, and falsities as truth; such documents are eagerly imbibed by children, but are judiciously rejected by men, if not founded on solid principles. We shall, therefore, to avoid such imaginary methodical distributions, which have been of no other use than to heap a multiplicity, and even distinct species, of animals into one indiscriminate mass.

What I call an Ape is an animal with a flat visage, and without a tail, whose teeth, fingers, nails, and hands, resemble those of the human species, and who also walks upright on its two feet. This definition, drawn from the nature of the animal, and its resemblance to man, will exclude every animal that has a tail, or a long snout, crooked or pointed claws, or whose nature obliges them to walk more willingly on four feet than on two. After this fixed and precise rule, let us examine to what animals the name of Ape can properly be applied. The ancients knew only one; the pithecos of the Greeks, and the simia of the Latins, is the real ape, and on which Aristotle, Pliny, and Galen, have instituted all their physical comparisons, and founded all their relations of the ape to mankind. But this ape of the ancients, which so greatly resembles man in its external form, and still more in its internal organization, nevertheless differs from him in an essential point, namely, magnitude. The size of the human species is generally above five feet, while that of the pithecos is seldom more than a fourth of that height. Therefore, if this animal had a still greater resemblance to the human species, the ancients would have had reason to regard it only as an homunculus, a dwarf, or a pigmy, capable only of attacking small animals, while man knew how to subdue the elephant, and even to conquer the lion.

But since the discovery of the southern parts of Africa and India, another animal of this kind has been found, which possesses this attribute of size; an ape as tall and as strong as man, and equally as ardent after a woman as its own females; a species which are sagacious enough to make use of stones to attack their enemies, and sticks to defend themselves, and which resembles the human species still more than the pithecos, for, independently of its having no tail, a flat face, arms, hands, teeth, and nails, like those of a man, and, like him walking erect, it has a kind of visage, with features, approaching to those of mankind: its ears are of the same form; it has a beard on its chin, and not more hair on its body than man in his natural state. From these resemblances the more polished Indians have not hesitated to associate it among the human species, by the name of orang-outang, or wild man of the woods; while the Negroes, who are really as savage, and almost as ugly, as those animals, and who are not of opinion that civilization exalts our nature, have denominated it pongo, which signifies a beast, and has no relation to man. In fact this orang-outang is not only a brute but a very singular one, which man cannot look upon, without contemplating himself, and being convinced that his external form is not the most essential part of his nature.

Here then are two animals, the pithecos and the orang-outang, which must be ranked among the ape kind. There is also a third, to which, though more deformed, we cannot refuse that appellation; until very lately this animal was scarcely known, it was brought from the East Indies by the name of gibbon; like the other two it walks erect, is without a tail, and has a flat face; but its arms, instead of being proportioned to its height, are of such extraordinary length, that when it stands erect on its two feet, it touches the ground with its hands, without the smallest inclination of its body.

Next to these apes, we meet with another race of animals, which we shall indicate by the generic name of the baboon; and to distinguish them clearly from every other animal of the kind, it is necessary to observe that the baboon has a short tail, a long face, a broad muzzle, with canine teeth, larger in proportion than that of man, and callosities on its rump. By this definition, we exclude from this race all the apes which have no tails, all the monkies whose tails are as long, or longer than their bodies, and all the makis, loris, and other four-handed animals, that have their muzzles sharp and pointed. The ancients never had a proper name for these animals; Aristotle alone has pointed out one of those baboons by the name of simia porcaria, but gives a very imperfect indication of it in other respects. The Italians first called it babuino, the Germans bavion, the French babouin, the English baboon, and every modern author, who has written of it in Latin, papio. We shall therefore term it baboon, to distinguish it from the other species since discovered in the southern provinces of Africa and India. We are acquainted with three kinds of these animals. 1. The baboon, which is found in Arabia, &c. and which, probably, is the simia porcaria of Aristotle. 2. The mandrill, which is larger than the baboon, whose face is of a bluish colour, and furrowed with deep and oblique wrinkles; this is a native of Guinea, and the hottest parts of Africa. 3. The ouanderou, which is less than the baboon and mandrill; its head and face is surrounded with a very thick and long hair, and has a large white beard; it is seen in Ceylon, Malabar, and other southern parts of India. Thus we have precisely defined three species of the ape, and three of the baboon, and all of them very distinctly differing from each other.

But as Nature acts on one regular plan, connected and extended throughout all her works, and as her progress is always by minute degrees, there must be an intermediate species between the ape and the baboon. This intermediate species actually exists, and is, in fact, to be found in the magot, which fills up the chasm between the other two. It differs from the first in having a long muzzle and large canine teeth; and varies from the second, in not having any tail, although there is a small protuberance of skin at that part, which has something of that appearance. This animal, consequently, is neither an ape, nor a baboon, yet, at the same time, partakes of the nature of both. The magot, which is a very common animal in Upper Egypt, as well as in Barbary, was known to the ancients. The Greeks and Latins denominated it cynocephalus, because its muzzle resembles that of a dog. These animals, then, must be ranged in the following order: orang-outang, or pongo, is the first ape; the pithecos, the second; the gibbon, the third; the cynocephalus, or magot, the fourth ape, or the first baboon. The papio, the first baboon; the mandrill, the second; and the ouanderou, the third. This order is neither arbitrary nor fictitious, but strictly conformable to the steps of Nature.

After the species of apes and baboons, immediately follow the guenons, or monkies; that is, animals which resemble the two former, but which have tails as long, or longer than their bodies. The word guenon was anciently employed, sometimes to denote a small ape, and at others, the female; it has also been used in the sense we now take it, to denote the apes with long tails, and was probably derived from the word kébos, which the Greeks made use of for that very purpose. Of these guenons, or monkies, we know of nine species, which we shall distinguish by different names, to avoid confusion, and for the sake of regularity. The first of these is the macaque; the second, the patas, or red monkey; the third, the malbrouck; the fourth, the mangabey; the fifth the mone; the sixth, the callitrix, or green monkey; the seventh, the moustac; the eighth, the talapoin; and the ninth, the douc, so called in Cochin-China, of which country it is a native. The ancients knew only two of this class, the mone and the callitrix, which inhabit Arabia and the northern parts of Africa; they had not the least idea of any other, for they are only to be found in the southern provinces of Africa and the East Indies, countries absolutely unknown in the time of Aristotle. This great philosopher, and the Greeks in general, were so careful to affix proper names to different animals, that they denominated the ape without a tail, pithecos, and the monkey with a long tail, kébos, both of which they carefully drew from the most apparent character of these animals. All the apes and baboons which they knew, had a uniform colour; on the contrary, the monkey which we call mone, and the Greeks, kébos, has hair of different colours, and is vulgarly called the variegated monkey; this species was the most common of all those animals in the time of Aristotle; and from this character it obtained the name of kébos, which in Greek signifies a variety of colours. Thus all the animals of the ape, baboon, and monkey kind, mentioned by Aristotle, may be reduced to four, the pithecos, the cynocephalus, the simia porcaria, and the kébos; which we think ourselves sufficiently justified to rank as the pithecos or pigmy, the magot, the baboon, and the mone, not only because their particular characters perfectly agree with those mentioned by Aristotle, but also, because the other species must have been absolutely unknown to him, since they are natives of those countries into which the Greek travellers of his time had not penetrated.

Two or three ages after Aristotle, we meet with two new names in the Greek authors, callithrix and cercopithecos, both relative to the long-tailed monkey. In proportion as discoveries were made, in the southern regions of Africa and Asia, we meet with new animals, and other species of monkies; and as most of these monkies likewise were not of various colours like the kébos, the Greeks composed the generic name of cercopithecos, that is, the ape with a tail, to denote all the species of monkies, or apes with long tails; and having discovered among them one of a beautiful green colour, they called it callithrix, which signifies beautiful hair. This callithrix is found in the southern parts of Mauritania, and in the neighbouring countries of Cape Verd, and commonly known by the name of the green ape.

With respect to the other seven species of monkies, which we have indicated by the names of Macaque, Patas, Malbrouck, Mangabey, Moustac, Talapoin, and Douc, they were unknown to the ancients. The macaque is a native of Congo, the patas of Senegal, the mangabey of Madagascar, the malbrouk of Bengal, the moustac of Guinea, the talapoin of Siam, and the douc of Cochin-China; all these places were equally unknown to the ancients, and we have been careful to preserve the original names affixed to them in their native countries.

But as Nature always proceeds in a regular and gradual manner, never leaving any chasms, we meet with an intermediate species between the baboon and monkey, like that of the magot between the ape and the baboon. The animal which fills up this interval, greatly resembles the monkey, especially the macaque, but it has a broad muzzle, and short tail, like the baboon. Being ignorant of its proper name, we have called it the maimon, to distinguish it from other animals of this kind. It is a native of Sumatra, and is the only animal, as well among the baboon as the monkey species, that has no hair on its tail; and upon that account it has been described by the denomination of the pig-tailed or rat-tailed ape.

Thus we have enumerated all the animals of the old continent, to which the common name of ape has been given, though they are not only of very distant species, but even of very different genera. But what has completed the error and confusion in the arrangement of these animals is, that the names of ape, cynocephalus, kébos, cercopithecos, which were invented by the Greeks fifteen hundred years ago, have been given to animals of the new continent, which have been discovered within these two or three centuries. They knew not that the animals of Africa and of the East Indies, were not to be found in the southern parts of the new continent. Animals have been found in America with hands and fingers, and this character alone was thought sufficient to give them the appellation of apes, without considering that for transferring a name it was requisite that the animals should be of the same genus, and to apply it justly, of the same identical species. Now the animals of America, of which we shall form two classes, by the names of sapajous and sagoins, are very different from all the monkeys of Asia and Africa; and in the same manner as there are neither apes, monkeys, nor baboons, to be found in the new continent, so likewise there are neither the sapajous nor sagoins to be found in the old. Though we have already mentioned these facts in general, in our dissertation concerning the animals of the two continents, we can here prove it in a more particular manner, and demonstrate, that of seventeen species, to which number we may reduce all the ape species in the old continent, and of twelve or thirteen, to which this name of ape has been transferred in the new, there is not any of them alike, or to be found in both continents, for of the seventeen in the old we must first retrench three or four of the apes, who do not exist in America, and to whom the sapajous and the sagoins have no resemblance. Secondly, we must also retrench three or four of the baboons, which are much larger than the sagoins or the sapajous, and also of a very different form; there remains, therefore, only nine monkeys of the old continent with whom any comparison can be made. Now this species of monkeys, as well as the apes and baboons, have particular and general characters, which entirely separate them from the sapajous and sagoins. The first of these characters consists in the rump being bare, on which are natural callosities peculiar to those parts. The second is the having pouches on each side of the jaw, in which the animal can store its food. The third is in the make of the nostrils, which are narrow, and the apertures placed in the under parts, like those of man. The sapajous and sagoins have not one of these characters. The partition between their nostrils is very thick, and the apertures are placed on the sides of the nose, and not below it. They have hair on their posteriors, and no callosities; they have no pouches on each side of their jaws; and hence these animals differ not only in species but even in genus, since they have not any of the general characters common to the whole tribe of monkeys; and this difference in genus supposes still greater in the species, and demonstrates them to be quite distinct from each other.

The names of ape and monkey, therefore, have been very improperly applied to the sapajous and the sagoins. We must preserve their original names, and instead of ranking them with the apes, we should begin by comparing them together. These two families differ from each other by a very remarkable character. All the sapajous make use of their tails like a finger to hang by, and to procure what they cannot reach with their hands. The sagoins, on the contrary, cannot make use of their tail in that manner. Their face, ears, and hair, are also different; we may, therefore, very properly divide them into two distinct races.

Avoiding the use of denominations, which can only be applied to the monkey, baboon, or ape, we have endeavoured to indicate the sapajous and the sagoins by the names they bear in their native country. We are acquainted with six or seven species of sapajous, and six of the sagoins, most of which have varieties. We have carefully searched after their names in all authors, and particularly in the writings of observant travellers who have first mentioned them, because, in general, the names which any one of them have in their native country is derived from some particular character, which alone was sufficient to distinguish it from all the rest. With respect to the varieties, which in this class of animals are, perhaps, more numerous than the species, we have endeavoured to refer each to its respective species. We have had in our possession forty of these animals alive, differing from each other in a greater or less degree, and from a particular and attentive examination of which, we think the whole may be reduced to thirty species, viz. three apes, and one intermediate species between them and the baboons; three baboons, and one intermediate species between them and the monkeys; nine monkeys, seven sapajous, and six sagoins; the rest, or at least the greatest part of them, ought to be considered only as varieties. But as we are not absolutely certain that some of these varieties may not be distinct species, we shall endeavour to give all of them proper denominations.

Here, then, let us consider terrestrial animals, some of which so greatly resemble the human form, in a new point of view. The affixing the name of quadruped to all these animals has been done unjustly. If the exceptions were few we should not have objected to the application of this term. We are convinced that our definitions and names, however general, do not comprehend the whole; that there exists particular beings, which escape the most cautious definitions, and that intermediate species are constantly discovered. We know that many, though to all appearance holding the middle station, have escaped enumeration, and that the general names under which they are included is incomplete; because Nature should never be considered in the aggregate, but by unities only, because man has invented general names only to assist his memory, and because he afterwards weakly regarded those general names as realities; in short, because he has endeavoured to comprehend, under the same denominations, very different animals, and which necessarily required other appellations. I can give both example and proof, without swerving from the class of quadrupeds, which, of all animals, are those best known to man, and to which he was, consequently, the best enabled to give the most precise denominations.

The name of quadruped supposes an animal with four feet. If it be deficient in two, like the manati; if it have hands and arms like the ape; or if it have wings like the bat; it is not a quadruped: therefore this general denomination is erroneous when applied to either of those animals. In order to speak with precision, there should be truth in the ideas which the words represent; for instance, let us find a word to convey a perfect idea of an animal with two hands; if we had a term to denote a two-handed animal, as well as one with two feet, we might then say, that man alone is biped and bimanous, because he alone has two hands and two feet; that the manati is only bimanous; that the bat is only a biped; and the ape a quadrimanous, or four-handed animal. Let us now apply these new denominations to every particular being with which they agree, and we shall discover, that from the two hundred species of animals to which we have given the common name of quadrupeds, there are thirty-five sorts of apes, baboons, monkeys, sapajous, sagoins, and makis, must be retrenched, as they are quadrimanous, or four-handed; and that to those thirty-five species we must add the lori, the murine, Virginian and Mexican opossums, and the jerboas, which are also quadrimanous, like those above-mentioned, and that, consequently, the list of four-handed animals being at least composed of forty species, the real number of quadrupeds will be reduced one fifth part. If afterwards we take out twelve or fifteen species of bipeds, namely, the bats, whose fore-feet may rather be called wings than feet, and also three or four jerboas, because they can only walk on their hind feet, those before being too short; if we remove also the manati, which has no hind feet, and the different species of the walrus, and the seal, to which animals they are entirely useless, the number of quadrupeds will be found diminished a third more; and if we still subtract those animals which make use of their fore-feet like hands, as the bears, marmots, coatis, squirrels, rats, and many others, the denomination of quadrupeds will appear to be misapplied to more than one half of these animals. In fact real quadrupeds consist only of whole and cloven-footed animals. When we descend to the digitated class, we find four-handed, or ambiguous quadrupeds, who use their fore-feet in the manner of hands, and which ought to be distinguished or separated from the rest. There are three species of whole hoofed animals, the horse, the zebra, and the ass; and, by adding the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the camel, whose feet, though terminated by nails, are solid, and only serve for the purpose of walking, we shall have seven species to which the name of quadruped perfectly applies.

There is a much greater number of cloven-footed than whole-hoofed animals. The oxen, the sheep, the goat, the antelope, the bubalus, the lama, the pacos, the elk, the rein-deer, the stag, the fallow-deer, the roe-buck, &c. are all cloven-footed, and compose all together full forty-species. Thus, we have already fifty animals, ten whole hoofed, and forty cloven-footed, to which the name of quadruped has been rightly applied. In the digitated animals, the lion, tiger, panther, leopard, lynx, cat, wolf, fox, dog, hyæna, civet, badger, weasel, ferret, porcupine, hedge hog, armadillo, ant-eaters, and hog, which last constitutes the shade between digitated and cloven-footed tribes, add more than forty other species, to which the name of quadruped also applies in all the rigour of its acceptation; because, though their fore-feet are divided into four or five toes, they never use them as hands; but all the other digitated species who use their fore-feet to hold and carry food to their mouths, are not, in strict propriety, quadrupeds. Those species, which are also forty in number, form an intermediate class between quadrupeds and four-handed animals, and are in fact neither one nor the other. Therefore, to more than a fourth of our animals, the name of quadruped does not apply; and with more than one half it does not agree in all the extent of its acceptation.

The four-handed animals fill up the great chasm between the quadruped and the human species. The two handed are in the distance between man and the cetaceous tribes. The bipeds with wings are the shade between quadrupeds and birds; and the digitated species who use their fore-feet as hands, fill up all the degrees between the quadrupeds and the four-handed kinds. But this subject is too extensive to be here pursued; however useful it might be to give a distinct knowledge of animals, it is still more so by furnishing us with a new proof, that not any of our definitions are precise, nor our general terms exact, when specifically applied to objects, or to beings which they represent.

But why are these definitions and general terms, which seem to be the master-piece of invention, so exceedingly defective? Is this error the defect of human understanding? or rather, is it not an incapacity, or pure inability, of combining, and perceiving a number of objects at one view? Let us compare the works of nature with those of man: let us examine how both operate, and then enquire whether the human mind, however active and extensive, can follow the same route, without being lost either in the immensity of space, the obscurity of time, or in the infinite combinations of beings? Let a man direct his mind to any object if he would avoid being misled, he must walk in a direct line, pass over the least space, and employ the least possible time to accomplish his end. But in this pursuit, what a number of reflections and combinations must he make to avoid those deceitful and fallacious roads which at first offer themselves in such numbers, that it requires the greatest and nicest discernment to choose the true and direct path? This path, however, is not beyond the depth of the human mind; and by this only sure and solid method he arrives at the destined point of view; but if he seeks another point, it can only be obtained by another line. The train of our ideas is a delicate thread, which only extends in length without any other dimensions; while Nature, on the contrary, does not take a single step, without extending on all sides, and passing at once through the three dimensions of length, breadth and thickness; while man attains but one single point, she embraces all, and penetrates into every part of a solid mass. By the power of art, and length of time, our statuaries form a figure which externally resembles the object proposed; each point of this surface requires a thousand combinations. Their genius travels over as many lines as there are lineaments in the figure, and the least false step would deform it. This piece of marble, so perfectly executed that it seems to breathe, is, therefore, only a multitude of points to which the artist arrives by labour and time; for human genius being unable to seize more than one dimension at a time, and our senses reaching no further than surfaces, we cannot penetrate the substance; while, Nature, on the contrary, designs and enters into the depth of things; she produces forms almost instantaneously; she at once expands them in all their dimensions; as soon as her movements reach the surface, the penetrating powers with which she is animated, operate internally. The smallest atom, when she chooses to make use of it, is obliged to obey her will. Her actions, therefore, extend over all; she travels above, below, to the right and left, and consequently, she not only encompasses the surface, but every particle of the mass. What difference there consequently is in the result? What comparison can be made between a statue and an organised body? But also what inequality in their powers, and how disproportioned the instruments! Man can only make use of the power he possesses. Confined to a small quantity of motion, which he can only communicate by impulsion, he can only exert himself upon surfaces; since the power of impulsion in general is only transmitted by superficial contact. He only sees and touches, therefore, the surfaces of bodies, and when he attempts to proceed further, though he opens, divides, and separates, he still touches nothing more than surfaces. To penetrate the interior parts of bodies, he should be possessed of a portion of that power which acts upon the mass, or of gravity, which is Nature’s chief instrument. It is, therefore, the defect of instruments which prevents the art of man from approaching that of Nature. His figures, his pictures, his designs, are only surfaces, or imitations of surfaces, because the images he receives by his senses are all superficial, and he is unable to give them the internal parts.

What is true with regard to the arts is the same as to sciences, only that the latter is less confined, because the mind is the instrument, and which in the former is subordinate to the senses. But in the sciences the mind commands the senses, as its only endeavour is to search into objects, and not to operate on them; to compare, and not imitate them. The mind, though thus cramped by the senses, though often abused by their false reports, is, notwithstanding, neither less pure nor less active. Man, who has a natural desire to knowledge, began by rectifying, and demonstrating the errors of the senses. He has treated them as mechanical organs, as instruments, the effects of which must be left to experience. Pursuing still his desire of knowledge, he has travelled on with the balance in one hand, and the compass in the other, and has measured both time and space. Thus, he has recognized all the exterior parts of Nature’s works, but not being able to penetrate her internal parts by his senses, he has drawn his conclusions and formed a judgment of them by analogy and comparison. He discovered that there exists a general force in matter, quite different from that of impulsion; a force which does not come within the compass of our senses, and which, though we are unable to make use of, Nature employs as an universal agent. He has demonstrated, that this force belongs equally to all matter, in proportion to its mass or real quantity; that its action extends to immense distances, decreasing as the space augments. Afterwards, turning his eyes upon living beings, he found, that heat was another force necessary to their production; that light was a matter endowed with an unbounded elasticity and activity; that the formation and expansion of organized beings were the effects of a combination of all these forces; that the extension and growth of animal or vegetable bodies, follow exactly the laws of attraction, and are effected by an increase of all three dimensions at the same time; and that a mould, when once formed, must, according to these laws of affinity, produce a succession of others exactly resembling the original. By combining these attributes, common to animal and vegetable Nature, he discovered, that there existed in both an inexhaustible and reversible fund of organic and living substance; a substance as real as the unformed matter; a substance which continues always in its live as the other does in its inactive state; a substance universally diffused, passing from vegetables to animals by means of nutrition, returning from animals to vegetables by the process of putrefaction, and maintaining an incessant circulation for the animation of beings. He also remarked, that these organic particles existed in every organized body; that they were combined in greater or less quantities with dead matter; that they were more abundant in animals where all is full of life, and more scarce in vegetables where the dead matter predominates, and the living seems to be extinct; where the organic matter, overpowered by the rude, has neither progressive motion, sensation, heat, nor life, and is only manifested by its unfolding and reproduction. Reflecting on the manner each operates, he discovered, that every living being is a mould that possesses the power of assimilating the substances by which it is nourished; that growth is an effect of this assimilation, that the unfolding of a living body is not a simple augmentation of bulk, but an extension in every dimension, and a penetration of new matter into every part of the whole mass; that those parts increasing in proportion to the whole, and the whole in proportion to the parts, the form is preserved, and remains always the same till the growth is completed; that when the body has acquired all its extent, the same matter heretofore employed in the augmentation, is sent back as superfluous from every part to which it had been assimilated; and that, by uniting in one common point, it forms a new being, perfectly like the first, and which to attain the same dimensions, requires only to be expanded by the same mode of nutrition. He also observed that man, quadrupeds, cetaceous animals, birds, reptiles, insects, trees, plants, and herbs, were all nourished, unfolded, and reproduced by the same universal law; and that the manner of their nutrition and generation appearing so different, although dependent on one general and common cause, was because it could not operate but in a mode relative to the form of each particular species of being. To acquire these grand truths, required a succession of ages, and gradual investigation, but having obtained so much, he began to compare different objects together; and to distinguish one from the other, he gave them particular names, and invented general denominations to reunite them under one point of view. He observed, by taking the body of man as the physical model of every living animal, and by comparing and examining every living animal in their several parts, that the form of every thing that breathes is nearly the same; that the anatomy of a man and an ape are similar; that every animal has the same organization, the same senses, the same viscera, the same bones, the same flesh, the same motion of the fluids, and the same action in the solids. In all of them he has found a heart, veins, and arteries; the same organs of circulation, respiration, digestion, nutrition, and secretion; the same solid structure, erected with the same materials, and put together nearly in the same manner. This plan he found to proceed uniformly from mankind to the monkey, from the monkey to quadrupeds, from quadrupeds to the cetaceous animals, and so on to birds, fish, and reptiles. This plan, I say, when well comprehended by the human understanding, exhibits a faithful picture of animated nature, and affords the most simple and general view under which she can possibly be considered; and when we extend it by passing from the animal to the vegetable, we shall find this plan, which we at first found varying only by shades, degenerate by degrees from reptiles to insects, from insects to worms, from worms to zoophytes, and from zoophytes to plants; and though changed in all its exterior parts, nevertheless, still preserving the same character; the principal features of which are nutrition, expansion, and reproduction. These features are general and common to every organized substance, they are eternal and divine; and, far from being effaced or destroyed by time, are only renewed and rendered more plain and evident.

If, from this great picture of resemblances, in which the living universe presents itself as but one family, we pass to that of the differences, wherein each species claims a separate place, and a distinct portrait, we shall perceive, that excepting some of the larger species, such as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the tiger, and the lion, every other seems to unite with its neighbouring kind, and to form groups of degraded similitudes, or genera, which our nomenclators have represented in a network of figures, some of which are connected by the feet, and others by the teeth, horns, hair, and others by still smaller affinities. And even the apes, whose form appears to be the most perfect, that is, approaches nearest to that of man, are represented confusedly, and require very accurate observations to distinguish one from the other, because the privilege of separate species is less owing to form than size. Man himself, although a single species, and infinitely removed from that of all other animals, yet being only of a middle size, has more approximations than the larger kinds. We shall find in the history of the orang-outang that if we were only to attend to the figure, we might look on that, animal either as the termination of the human species, or the commencement of the ape; because, except the intellect, he is not deficient in any one thing which we possess, and because, in his body, he differs less from man than from the other animals to which we have given the denomination of apes.

The mind, thought, and speech, therefore do not depend on the form or organization of the body. Nothing more strongly proves that they are peculiar gifts bestowed on man alone, than that the orang-outang which neither speaks nor thinks, has, nevertheless, the body, the limbs, the senses, the skull, and the tongue exactly similar to man. He can counterfeit every motion of the human species, and yet cannot perfectly perform one single act; which may possibly be owing to a defect of education, or perhaps yet more to an error in our judgment. You unjustly compare, it may be said, an ape, who is a native of the forests, with the man who resides in polished society. To form a proper judgment between them, a savage man and an ape should be viewed together; for we have no just idea of man in a pure state of nature. The head covered with bristly hairs, or with curled wool; the face partly hid by a long beard, and still longer hairs in the front, which surround his eyes, destroy his august character, and make them appear sunk in his head, like those of the brutes; the lips thick and projecting, the nose flat, the aspect wild or stupid; the ears, body, and limbs are covered with hair; the nails long, thick, and crooked; a callous substance like a horn under the soles of the feet; the breasts of the female long and flabby, and the skin of her belly hanging down to her knees; the children wallowing in filth, and crawling on their hands and feet; and the father and mother sitting on their hams, forming a hideous appearance, rendered more so by being besmeared all over with stinking grease. This sketch, drawn from a savage Hottentot, is still a flattering portrait, for there is as great a distance between a man in a pure state of nature and a Hottentot, as there is between a Hottentot and us. But if we wish to compare the human species with that of the ape, we must add to it the affinities of organization, the agreements of temperament, the vehement desire of male apes for women, the like conformation of the genitals in both sexes, the periodic emanations of the females, the compulsive or voluntary intermixture of the negresses with the apes, the produce of which has united into both species; and then consider, supposing them not of the same species, how difficult it is to discover the interval by which they are separated.

I acknowledge, if we were forced to judge by external appearance alone, the ape might be taken for a variety in the human species. The Creator has not formed man’s body on a model absolutely different from that of the mere animal; he has comprehended his figure, as well as that of every other animal, under one general plan, but at the same time that he has given him a material form, similar to that of the ape, he infused this animal body with a divine spirit. If he had granted the same favour, not to the ape, but to the meanest animal, whose organization seems to us to be the worst of all constructed beings, this animal would soon have become the rival of man. Quickened by his spirit it would have excelled every other animal, by having the power of thought and speech. Therefore, whatever resemblance there may be between the Hottentot and the ape, the interval which separates them is immense, since the former is endowed with the faculties of thinking and speaking.

Who will ever be able to tell in what the organization of an idiot differs from that of another man? yet the defect is certainly in the material organs, since the idiot has a soul like another person. Now, since in mankind, where the whole structure is entirely conformable, and perfectly similar, a difference so trifling as to be entirely imperceptible is sufficient to destroy thought, we must not be astonished that it never appears in the ape, which has not the necessary principle.

The action of the soul in general is distinct and independent of matter. But as it has pleased the Divine Author to unite it with the body, the exercise of its particular actions depends on the state of the material organs; and this dependance is not only apparent from the example of idiots but from persons afflicted with delirium, from infants who cannot think, from healthful men when asleep, and from very old people, after the power of thinking is gone. Even the principle of education seems to consist not so much in instructing the mind, or bringing its operation to perfection, as in modifying the material organs, and putting them into the most favourable condition for exercising the thinking principle. Now there are two kinds of educations which should be carefully distinguished, as their effects are quite different; the education of the individual, which is common both to man and the other animals, and that of the species which belongs to man alone. A young animal, as well from incitement as example, learns in a few weeks to perform all the actions of its parents: a child requires a number of years to attain this degree of perfection, because when born its growth and strength is incomparably less forward than in young animals. In the first years the mind is a void relatively to what it becomes in future. A child, therefore, is much slower in receiving individual education than that of the brute; but for this very reason it becomes susceptible of that of the species. The multiplicity of aids, and the continual cares, which for a long time, the weak state of the infant exact, entertain and increase the attachment of its parents, and while they are attending to the care of the body, they cultivate the mind. The time required to strengthen the first, turns to the profit of the latter. In the generality of animals the corporeal faculties are more advanced in two months than those of an infant in two years; there is, therefore, twelve times as much time employed in its individual education, without reckoning what is still remaining to acquire after this period, without considering that animals quit their young as soon as they are able to provide for themselves, and that soon after this separation they know each other no more, so that all attachment, and all education, ceases in them at the very moment assistance is no longer necessary. Now this time of education being so short, its effects must be very small; and it is even astonishing that animals acquire in two months whatever is necessary for their use during the rest of life: and if we suppose a child, in an equal space of time, should become sufficiently formed and strong to leave its parents, and never to return to them for assistance, would there be any sensible difference between this child and the brute animal? However ingenious and able the parents were, could they be able to prepare and modify its organs in so short a space of time, or to establish the least communication of thought between their minds and his? Could they be able to excite his memory by impressions sufficiently reiterated? Could they even modify or unfold their organs of speech? No, for before the child can pronounce a single word his ear must have received repeated impressions of the sound expressing that word; and, before he can be able to apply or pronounce it properly, the same combination of the word, and the object to which it belongs, must be frequently presented to him. Education, therefore, which alone can expand the powers of the mind, will be unremittingly continued for a length of time; if it should cease, not at the end of two months, as in animals, but even when twelve months old, the mind of the child, which could have received no impression, would remain inactive, like that of an idiot, the defect of whose organs prevents the reception of knowledge. This reasoning would apply with double force if we suppose the child born in a pure state of nature, if it had only a Hottentot mother for its tutoress, and that at the age of two months it was able to separate from her, and live without her care and assistance:—would not this child be worse than an idiot, and entirely on a par with the brutes? But in this state of nature, the first education, that is, the education of necessity, exacts as much time as in the civilized state, because in both the child is equally weak, and equally slow in its growth, and consequently it has need of the care of its parents for an equal portion of time. In short, it would infallibly perish if abandoned before the age of three years. Now this necessary habitude, so long continued between the mother and the child, is sufficient to communicate to it all that she possesses; and though we should falsely suppose, that this mother, in a state of nature, possesses not any one gift, not even that of speech, would not this long habitude with her child produce a language? Thus this state of pure nature, wherein we suppose man to be without thought and speech, is imaginary, and never had existence. This needful and long intercourse of parents with their children produces society in the midst of a desart. The family understand each other by signs and sounds; and this first ray of intelligence, when cherished, cultivated, and communicated, unfolds, in the process of time, all the buds of thought; and as this habitual intercourse could not sustain itself so long without producing mutual signs and sounds, always repeated and gradually engraven on the memory of the child, would consequently become constant and intelligible expressions; though the list of words is short, it still forms a language, which will soon become more extended as the family increases, and will always follow the steps of society in improvement. Society being formed, the education of the child is no longer individual, for then the parents communicate to it not only what they possess from Nature, but also what they have received from their ancestors, and from the society of which they form a part. It is no longer a communication between detached individuals, confined like animals to the transmission of simple faculties, but an institution of which the whole species partakes, and whose produce constitutes the bond and basis of society.

Even among brute animals, though deprived of the thinking principle, those whose education is the longest are also those which seem to have the greatest share of intelligence: the elephant, who takes the longest time in completing its growth, and which requires the assistance of its mother for the whole of the first year, is also the most intelligent animal. The Guinea-pig, which requires only three weeks to accomplish its growth, and be in a generating state, is perhaps, for this reason alone, one of the most stupid animals in Nature. With respect to the ape, with a view to ascertain whose nature we have gone into this investigation, whatever resemblance he may bear to man, yet his affinity to the brutes is evident from the moment of his birth; he is then proportionably stronger, and more completely formed than the infant, and the time of his growth bears no comparison; the assistance of his mother is only necessary during a few months; his education is purely individual, and consequently as sterile as that of other animals.

The ape, therefore, notwithstanding his resemblance to the human form, is a brute, and so far from being second in our species, he is not even the first in the order of animals, because he is not the most intelligent among them; therefore it is only on account of the corporeal resemblance that prejudice has been formed in favour of the great faculties of the ape. He resembles man it is said both externally and internally, and therefore he must not only imitate us, but also of his own accord, act in the same manner as we do. We have seen that every action which we call human is relative to society: that they depend, at first on the mind, and afterwards on education, the physical principle of which is the necessity there is for the long intercourse between parents and children: that this intercourse is very short with the ape; that, like other animals, he only receives an education purely individual, and is not susceptible of any other; consequently he cannot act like man, since no action of the ape has the same principle, nor the same end. With respect to imitation, which appears to be the strongest and most striking character in the ape kind, and which the vulgar refer to him as a peculiar talent, before we decide, we must examine whether this imitation be spontaneous or forced. Does the ape imitate the human species from inclination, or from possessing an innate capacity of performing those actions without choice or exertion? I willingly appeal to all those who have observed this animal without prejudice, and I am convinced they will agree with me, that there is nothing voluntary in their imitation. The monkey having arms and hands, makes use of them as we do, but without any idea of copying our example. The similitude of his limbs and organs necessarily produces motions resembling ours; being formed like man he must be enabled to move like him; but this similarity of motion by no means proves that he acts from imitation. Let us, for instance, construct two pendulums of the same form, and give them an equal motion, would it not be absurd to say that these machines imitate each other? It is the same with respect to the ape, relatively to the body of man; they are two machines, similarly constructed, and by the impulse of Nature move nearly in the same manner: however, parity must not be considered as imitation; the one depends on matter, and the other exists only in reason. Imitation supposes a design of copying; the ape is incapable of forming this design, which requires a train of thought and judgment; for this reason, man, if he choose, can imitate the ape, but the ape cannot have an idea of imitating man.

This parity is no more than the physical part of imitation, and not so complete as the similitude, from which, however, it proceeds as an immediate effect. The ape resembles man more in his body and limbs than in the use he makes of them. By observing the ape attentively we shall perceive that all his motions are sudden, intermittent, and precipitate; and to compare them with those of man we must suppose a different model. Every action of the ape strongly partakes of his education, which is purely animal; and they appear to be extravagant, ridiculous, and inconsequential, because we judge of them by our own, which is a false comparison. As his nature is vivacious, his temperament warm, his disposition petulant, and none of his affections have been polished by education, all his habitudes are excessive, and more resemble the actions of a lunatic than those of a man, or even those of a peaceable animal: from the same reason we find him indocile, and receiving with difficulty the impressions we wish him to imbibe. He is insensible to kindness, and only to be rendered obedient through fear of chastisement. He may be kept in captivity, but not in a domestic state. Always sullen, stubborn, or making grimaces, he may rather be said to be subdued than tamed; therefore none of this species has ever been domesticated in any part of the world, and consequently is more distant from man than most other animals, for docility supposes some analogy betwixt the giver and the receiver of instruction; a relative quality, which cannot be exercised but when there is a certain number of common faculties in both, which only differ from each other because they are active in the master and passive in the scholar. Now the passive qualities of the ape have less relation to the active qualities of man than those of the dog or elephant, who only require good treatment to receive the kind and even delicate sentiments of a faithful attachment, voluntary obedience, grateful service, and an unreserved and ready attention to the commands of their master.

The ape is, therefore, further removed from the human species in relative qualities, than most other animals: He likewise differs greatly by temperament. The human species can dwell in every climate; he lives and multiplies in the northern as well as in the southern regions; but the ape lives with difficulty in temperate countries, and can only multiply in the hottest parts of the earth. This difference of temperament supposes others in organization, which though concealed, are no less real; it must also have a great influence on his natural dispositions. The excess of heat so necessary to this animal renders all his affections, and all his qualities, excessive; and we need not seek for any other cause to account for his petulance, his lubricity, and his other passions, which seem to be as violent as they are extravagant.

Thus the ape, which philosophers, as well as the generality of people, have regarded as a being difficult to define, and the nature of which was at least equivocal, and intermediate between that of man and the brute, is, in fact, no other than a real brute, wearing externally a human mask, but internally destitute of thought, and every other attribute which constitutes the human species: an animal inferior to many others in his relative faculties, and most essentially different from the human race in his nature, temperament, and also in the time necessary to his education, gestation, growth, and duration of life; that is, in every real habitude which constitutes what we call Nature in a particular being.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 195. Jocko.

FIG. 196. Small Gibbon.

THE ORANG-OUTANG [L], OR THE PONGO, AND THE JOCKO.

[L] Orang-outang is the name this animal bears in the East-Indies; pongo, its denomination at Lowando, a province of Congo; and Kukurlacko in some parts of the East-Indies.

WE shall present the Orang-outang and the Jocko together, because they, possibly, belong to the same species. Of all the ape and monkey kinds, these bear the greatest resemblance to the human form, and consequently, those which are most worthy particular notice. We have seen the small orang-outang, or jocko ([fig. 195.]) alive, and have preserved its skin; but we can only speak of the pongo, or great orang-outang, from the accounts given us by travellers. If their relations might be depended on, if they were not often obscure, faulty, and exaggerated, we should not doubt of its being a different species from the jocko, a species more perfect, and approaching still nearer to the human race. Bontius, who was head physician at Batavia, and who has left some excellent observations on the Natural History of that part of India, expressly says, that he saw with admiration, some individuals of this species walking erect on two feet, and among others a female (of which he gives a figure) who seemed to have an idea of modesty, covering herself with her hand on the appearance of men with whom she was not acquainted; who sighed, cried, and did a number of other actions, so like the human race, that she wanted nothing of humanity but the gift of speech. Linnæus, upon the authority of Kjoep and other travellers, says, that even this faculty is not wanting in the orang-outang, but that he thinks, speaks, and expresses his meaning in a whistling tone. He calls him the Nocturnal Man, and at the same time gives such a description of him, that it is impossible to decide whether he is a brute or human being. We must, however, remark, that, according to Linnæus, this being, whatever he may be, is not above half the height of a man; and as Bontius makes no mention of the size of his orang-outang, we should imagine them to be the same: but, then, this animal of Linnæus and Bontius would not be the true orang-outang, which is of the size of a very tall man: neither can he be what we call the Jocko, which I have seen alive; for although he was of the same size as that described by Linnæus, yet he differed in every other character. I can affirm, from having repeatedly seen him, that he neither spake nor expressed himself by a whistling noise, and that he did not perform a single thing which a well instructed dog could not perform: He differed in almost every respect from the description which Linnæus gives of the orang-outang, and agreed much better with that of the satyrus of the same author. I therefore greatly doubt the truth of the description of this nocturnal man; I even doubt his existence; and it was probably a white negro, a Chacrelas, whom those travellers, which Linnæus has quoted, have but superficially seen, and as blindly described, for the Chacrelas, like the nocturnal man of this author, has white, woolly, frizly hair, red eyes, a weak sight, &c. But then they are men, and do not whistle; nor are they pigmies of only 30 inches in height; they think, speak and act, like other men, and their stature is exactly the same.