subjection of man; and dogs having been transported by mankind into every part of the world, have submitted their actions to his entire direction. Regulated in their breeding by the pleasure or caprice of their masters, the almost endless variety of dogs differ from each other in colour; in length and abundance of hair, which is sometimes entirely wanting; in their natural instincts; in size, which varies in measure as one to five; amounting, in some instances to more than an hundred-fold in bulk; in the forms of their ears, noses, and tails; in the relative lengths of their legs; in the progressive development of the brain, in several of the domesticated varieties, occasioning alterations even in the form of the head; some of them having long slender muzzles with a flat forehead, others having short muzzles, with the forehead convex, &c; insomuch that the apparent differences between a mastiff and a water-spaniel, and between a greyhound and a pug-dog, are even more striking than between almost any of the wild species of a genus. Finally, and this may be considered as the maximum of known variation in the animal kingdom, some races of dogs have an additional claw on each hind foot, with corresponding bones of the tarsus or instep; as there sometimes occur in the human species, some families that have six fingers on each hand. Yet, in all these varieties, the relations of the bones with each other remain essentially the same, and the form of the teeth never perceptibly changes, except that in some individuals one additional false grinder occasionally appears, sometimes on the one side, and sometimes on the other. -Cuvier. FABULOUS ANIMALS. -- Why are the unknown animals of the ancients fabulous? Because the greater number of them have an origin purely mythological; and of this origin the descriptions given of them bear the most unequivocal marks; as, in almost all of them, we merely see the different parts of known animals united by an unbridled imagination, and in contradiction to every established law of nature. Learned men may attempt to decypher the mystic knowledge connected under the form of the sphynx of Thebes, the pegasus of Thessaly, the minotaur of Crete, or the chimera of Epirus; but it would be folly to expect seriously to find such monsters in nature. We might as well endeavour to find the animals of Daniel, or the beasts of the Apocalypse, in some hitherto unexplored recesses of the globe. Neither can we look for the mythological animals of the Persians, - such as the martichore, or destroyer of men, having a head on the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion; the griffin, or guardian of hidden treasures, half eagle and half lion; or the cartazonon, or wild ass, armed with a long horn on its forehead. Ctesias, who reports these as actual living animals, has been looked upon by some as an inventor of fables; whereas he only attributes real existence to hieroglyphical representations. - Cuvier. The fables of men with tails, of the natural apron of the Hottentot women, of the supposed natural deficiency of beard in the Americans, syrens, centaurs, &c, can only be excused by the simple, easy, credulity of our ancestors. Blumenbach. Why was the existence of men with tails formerly credited? Because of its origin from old and scarcely recognizable representations of the Wanderow monkey, thus transformed by the embellishments of subsequent copyists.— Blumenbach. Why are cynocephali, or dog-headed baboons, satyrs and sphinxes, celebrated in Egyptian antiquities? Because they were furnished by fantastic representations on the ancient monuments of Egypt, in which the parts of different kinds of creatures are strangely combined, -men with the heads of animals, and animals with the heads of men. - Cuvier. Why was the fable of pigmies credited? Because of the custom of exhibiting in the same sculpture, in bas-relief, men of very different heights, of making kings and conquerors gigantic, while their subjects and vassals are represented as only a fourth or fifth part of their size. Cuvier. Why is the carnivorous bull of Agatharcides a monster of invention? Because nature bas never joined cloven hoofs and horns, as in the bull, with teeth adapted for cutting and devouring animal food. The mouth of this bull, says the fable, extending from ear to ear, devoured every other animal that came in its way. Cuvier. Why had the ancients their fables about the graves of giants? Because they believed giants to have been buried wherever the bones of elephants were dug up.Cuvier. END OF THE QUADRUPEDS. |