By the preceding enumeration it appears, that not only the quadrupeds
of the hot climates of Asia and Africa, but many of those in the
temperate climates of Europe, are strangers in America; but we find
many there of such as can support cold and propagate their species in
the regions of the north; and though there is an evident difference
in them they cannot but be considered as the same animals; and this
induces us to believe, they formerly passed from one continent to the
other by lands still unknown, or possibly long since buried by the
waves. Of the contiguity of the two northern provinces, the proof thus
drawn from Natural History is a stronger confirmation than all the
conjectures of speculative Geography.
The Bears of the Illinois, of Louisiana, &c. seem to be the same with
ours; the former being only smaller and blacker. The stag of Canada,
though smaller than ours, differs only in the superior loftiness of
his horns, number of antlers, and length of his tail. The roe-buck,
found in the south of Canada, and in Louisiana, is also smaller and has
a longer tail than that of Europe. The Orignal is the same animal as
the Elk, but not so large. The rein-deer of Lapland, the fallow-deer
of Greenland, and the Caribou of Canada, appear to be one and the
same animal. Brisson has indeed classed the latter with the _cervus
Burgundicus_ of Johnston, but which animal remains unknown, and
possibly received that name from accident or caprice.
The hares, squirrels, hedge-hogs, otters, marmots, rats, shrew-mice,
and the moles, are species which may be considered as common to both
continents; though there is not one perfectly similar in America, to
what it is in Europe; and it is very difficult, if not impossible,
to pronounce whether they are in reality different species, or mere
varieties rendered permanent by the influence of the climate.
The Beavers of Europe seem to be the same as those of Canada. These
animals prefer cold countries, but can subsist and propagate in
temperate ones. In the islands of the Rhone in France, there still
remain a few of the number which formerly subsisted there; and
they seem more desirous of avoiding a too populous than a too warm
country. They never form their societies but in desarts remote from
the dwellings of men; and even in Canada, which can be considered as
little more than a vast desart, they have retired far from any human
habitation. The Wolf and Fox are common to both continents. They are
met with in all parts of North America, and of both species; there are
some entirely black. Though the Weasel and Ermine frequent the cold
countries of Europe, they are very rare in America, which is not the
case with the pine-weasel, marten, and pole-cat. The Pine-weasel of
North America seems to be the same with that of the northern parts of
Europe. The Vison of Canada has a strong resemblance to our Marten; and
the streaked Pole-cat of North America, is perhaps a mere variety of
the European kind. The Lynx of America is, to all appearance, the same
with that in Europe. Though it prefers cold countries, it lives and
multiplies in temperate ones, and is seldom seen but in forests and on
mountains. The Seal, or sea-calf, seems to be confined to the northern
regions, and is alike to be found on the coasts of Europe and North
America.
Such, with a few exceptions, are all the animals common to the old
and new world; and from this number, inconsiderable as it is, we
ought, perhaps, to deduct one third, whose species, though similar in
appearance, may be different in reality. But admitting the identity
of species, those common to both continents are very small in number,
compared with those peculiar to each; and it is also evident, that such
only as can bear cold, and can multiply in these climates, as well as
in warm ones, are to be found in both. From which there cannot remain a
doubt but that the two continents are, or have been contiguous towards
the north, and that the animals common to both, found a passage over
lands which at present are to us unknown. There is reason to believe,
from the discoveries made by the Russians to the north of Kamtschatka,
that the lands of Asia and America are contiguous, while the north of
Europe appears always to have been separated from the latter by seas
too considerable for any quadruped to have crossed; nevertheless, the
animals of North America have a stronger resemblance to those of the
northern parts of Europe than to those of the north of Asia. Neither
the Argali, Sable, Mole of Siberia, nor Chinese Musk, are to be found
at Hudson's Bay, or any other north-west part of the new continent;
while in the north-east parts we not only find the animals common to
the north of Europe and Asia, but even such as appear to be peculiar to
Europe. But it must be acknowledged, that the north-east parts of Asia
are so little known that we cannot attempt to affirm, with certainty,
whether the animals of the north of Europe are to be found there or not.
We have already remarked, as a striking singularity, that the animals
in the southern provinces of the new continent are small, in comparison
with those of the warm regions of the old; the elephant, &c. of the
latter being some of them eight and ten times larger than the tapir,
&c. of the former. And this general fact, as to size, is further
corroborated, by all the animals which have been transported from
Europe having become less, and also those common to both continents
being much smaller in America than those of Europe. In this new world,
then, there must be something in the combination of the elements, and
other physical causes, which opposes the aggrandisement of animated
nature; there must be obstacles to the development, and perhaps to
the formation of the principles of life. Under this sky, and on this
vacant land, even those which, from the benign influence of other
climates, had received their full form and complete extension, lose
both, and become shrivelled and diminished. These extensive regions
were thinly inhabited by a few wandering savages, who, instead of
acting as masters, had no authority in it: for they had no controul
over either animals or elements; they had neither subjected the
waves nor directed the motions of rivers, nor even cultivated the
earth around them; they were themselves nothing more than animals
of the first rank, mere automatons, incapable of correcting Nature,
or seconding her intentions. Nature, indeed, had treated them more
as a stepmother than as an indulgent parent, by denying to them the
sentiment of love, and the eager desire to propagate their species.
The American savage, it is true, is little less in stature than other
men, yet that is not sufficient to form an exception to the general
remark--that all animated nature is comparatively diminutive in the
new continent. In the savage the organs of generation are small and
feeble; he has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female; though
more nimble than the European, from being habituated to running, he is
not so strong; possessed of less sensibility, yet he is more timid and
dastardly; he has no vivacity, no activity of soul, and that of the
body is less a voluntary exercise than a necessary action occasioned
by want. Satisfy his hunger and thirst and you annihilate the active
principle of all his motions; and he will remain for days together in
a state of stupid inactivity[B]. Needless is it to search further into
the cause for the dispersed life of savages, and their aversion to
society. Nature has withheld from them the most precious spark of her
torch; they have no ardour for the female, and consequently no love for
their fellow-creatures. Strangers to an attachment the most lively and
tender, their other kindred sensations are cold and languid: to their
parents and children they are little more than indifferent; with them
the bands of the most intimate of all society, are feeble, nor is there
the smallest connection between one family and another; of course they
have no social state among them; cold in temperament, their manners are
cruel, their women they treat as drudges born to labour, or rather as
beasts of burthen, whom they load with all the produce of the chace,
and whom they oblige, without pity or gratitude, to perform offices
repugnant to their natures, and frequently beyond their strength.
They have few children, and to those they pay little attention. The
whole arises from one cause; they are indifferent because they are
weak, and this indifference to the female is the original stain which
defaces nature, prevents her from expanding, and, while it destroys
the seeds of life, strikes at the root of society. Man, therefore,
forms no exception; for Nature, by retrenching the faculty of love,
has diminished him more than any other animal. Before we examine the
causes of this general effect, it must be acknowledged, that although
Nature has reduced all the quadrupeds of the new world, yet she has
preserved the size of reptiles, and enlarged that of insects; for
although there are larger lizards and larger serpents at Senegal than
in South America, yet in these animals the difference is not near so
great as in the quadrupeds; the largest serpent at Senegal is not
twice as large as the great adder of Cayenne, whereas the elephant is
ten times as big as the tapir, which is the largest animal of South
America. In no part are the insect tribes so large as in South America.
At Cayenne, the spiders, caterpillars, and butterflies, surpass all
the insects of the old continent, not only as to size, but in richness
of colours, delicacy of shades, variety of forms, number of species,
and the prodigious multiplication of individuals. The toads, frogs,
and other creatures of this kind, are also very large in America. Of
the birds and fish we shall say nothing; for since they possess the
power of migrating from one continent to the other, it would be almost
impossible to distinguish which properly belongs to either, but insects
and reptiles, like quadrupeds, are confined nearly to the spot in
which they came into existence.
[Footnote B: Mr. Vaillant says, that the Hottentots will sleep for
two or three days together, either from hunger or excess in eating;
for, when hungry, indolence has suggested to them the expedient of
sleeping instead of the labour of seeking for food, and that by tying a
bandage round their bellies they can do so for the above space, without
experiencing any consequent inconvenience.]
Let us now then enquire why, in this new world, the reptiles and
insects are so large, the quadrupeds so small, and the men so cold.
These effects must depend on the quality of the earth and atmosphere,
on the degrees of heat and moisture, on the situation and height of
mountains, on the quality of running and stagnate waters, on the
extent of forests, and, in a word, on the state in which inanimate
nature presents itself in that country. In the new world there is
much less heat and more moisture than in the old. If we compare the
heat and cold, in each degree of latitude, we shall find a very great
difference; that at Quebec, which is under the same degree of latitude
as Paris, the rivers are covered with ice for months in the year, and
the grounds with snow several feet thick; the air, indeed, is so cold,
that the birds fly off at the approach of winter, and return not till
invited by the warmth of spring. This difference of heat under the same
latitude in the Temperate Zone, though considerable, is perhaps less
so than the difference of that under the Torrid Zone. At Senegal, we
are scorched, while at Peru, situate under the same line, we enjoy the
benign influence of a temperate climate. In such a situation is the
continent of America placed, and so formed, that every thing concurs
to diminish the action of heat. There we find the highest mountains
and greatest rivers in the known world; these mountains form a chain
which seems to terminate the length of the continent towards the west,
while the plains and low grounds are all situated on this side of the
mountains, from whose base they extend to the sea, which separates
the American from the European continents. Thus the east wind, which
constantly blows between the tropics, does not reach America until it
has traversed a vast extent of ocean, and has consequently been greatly
cooled; and for this reason it is much less warm at Brasil and Cayenne,
for example, than at Senegal and Guinea, where this east wind arrives,
charged with the heat of all the burning sands and desarts which it
necessarily passes in traversing both Asia and Africa.
In treating of the different colours of men, particularly negroes, it
appeared to be demonstrated that the strong tincture of brown or black
depends entirely on the situation of the country; that the negroes
of Nigritia, and those of the west coast of Africa are the blackest,
because those countries are so situated as to contain more heat than
any other part of the globe, from the east wind not reaching them until
it had passed immense tracks of land; that the American Indians, under
the line, are only tawny, and the Brasilians brown, though under the
same latitude as the negroes, because the heat of the climate is not
so great, and the east wind has been cooled with the water, and loaded
with humid vapours. The clouds which intercept the sun, and the rains
which refresh the earth, are periodical, and continue several months at
Cayenne, and other countries of South America. The first cause renders
all the east coasts of America more temperate than either Asia or
Africa; this wind arriving in a cool state begins to assume a degree
of heat in traversing the plains of America, but which is checked by
the enormous chain of mountains of which the western part of the new
continent is composed, so that it is less hot under the line at Peru
and Cayenne, and the natives are of a less dark complexion. If the
Cordeliers were reduced to a level with the adjacent plains, the heat
would be excessive in the western territories, and there would soon be
men as black at Chili and Peru, as on the western coasts of Africa. It
is evident then that diminution of heat in the new continent is owing
entirely to situation; and we shall now make it appear, that there is
a much greater degree of moisture in America. The mountains being the
most lofty of any upon the globe, and directly facing the east wind,
they stop and condense the vapours of the air, and thus give rise to a
number of springs, which, by their junction, form the greatest rivers
in the world. In proportion, therefore, to its extent there are more
running waters in the new continent than in the old, and which are
augmented by their confined situations; for the natives having never
checked the torrents, directed the rivers, nor drained the marshes,
immense tracts of land are covered by the stagnant waters, by which the
moisture of the air is increased and the heat diminished. Besides, the
earth being every where covered with trees and coarse weeds, it never
dries, but constantly produces humid and unwholesome exhalations. In
these gloomy regions, Nature remains concealed under her old garments,
never having received a new attire from the cultivation of man, but
totally neglected, her productions languish, become corrupted, and are
prematurely destroyed. It is principally then from the scarcity of
men in America, and from most of them living like the brutes, that
the earth has been neglected, remains cold, and is unable to produce
the active principles of Nature. To develope the seeds of the largest
animals and enable them to grow and multiply, requires all the heat
which the sun can communicate to a fertile soil; and for a reason
directly opposite it is, that insects, reptiles, and all the little
animals which wallow in the mud, whose blood is watery, and whose
increase depends on putrefaction, are more numerous and large in the
low, humid, and marshy lands of the new continent.
When we reflect on these very striking differences between the old and
new continents, we can hardly help supposing that the latter is, in
fact, more recent, and has remained buried under the ocean longer than
the rest of the globe; for, the enormous western mountains excepted,
which seem to be monuments of the most remote antiquity, it has all the
appearance of being a land newly sprung up. We find sea-shells in many
places under the very first stratum of the vegetable earth, formed into
masses of lime-stone, though usually less hard and compact than our
free-stone. If this continent is in reality as ancient as the other,
why did so few men exist on it? why were the most of that few wandering
savages? why did the Mexicans and Peruvians, who alone had entered
into society, reckon only 200 or 300 years from the first man who
taught them to assemble? why had they not reduced the lama, pacos, and
other animals, by which they were surrounded, into a domestic state?
As their society was in its infancy, so were their arts; their talents
were imperfect, their ideas unexpanded, their organs rude, and their
language barbarous. The names of their animals[C], of which we have
subjoined a few as a specimen, were so difficult to pronounce, that our
only astonishment is, how the Europeans should have taken the trouble
to write them.
[Footnote C: _Pelon ichiati oquitli_--the lama.
_Tapiierete_, in Brasil; _maniporous_, in Guinea--the tapir.
_Macatlchichiltic temamacama_--the antelope of New Spain.
_Quauhtla coymatl_--the Mexican hog.
_Tlacoozclotl_--the mountain cat.
_Tlaclaughqui ocelotl_, in Mexico--the jaguar.
_Hoitzlaquatzin_--the porcupine of New Spain.
_Xoloitzchuintli_--the Mexican wolf.]
Thus every circumstance seems to indicate, that the Americans were
new men, or rather men who had been so long estranged from the rest
of their species that they had lost all idea of the world from which
they had issued; that the greatest part of the American continent was
new land, unassisted by man, and in which Nature had not had time to
establish all her plans, or to display their full extent; that the men
are cold and the animals diminutive, because the ardour of the former,
and the largeness of the latter, depend on the heat and salubrity of
the air; and that, in the course of a few centuries when the lands are
cultivated, the forests cut down, the rivers confined within proper
channels, and the marshes drained, this very country will become the
most fruitful, healthy, and opulent in the world; as it appears already
in every part which has been cultivated by man. We mean not to infer
that large animals would then be produced, for the tapir and cabiai
will never attain the size of the elephant or hippopotamus, but those
which may be transported there will no longer diminish. By degrees man
will fill up the vacuums in these immense territories, which, when
discovered, were perfect desarts.
The first writers who recorded the conquests of the Spaniards, to
heighten the glory of their arms exaggerated the number of their
enemies; but is it possible for any reasonable man to credit that
there were millions of inhabitants at Cuba and St. Domingo, when those
writers admit there was neither a monarchy, a republic, nor scarcely
any society among them; and that in these two neighbouring islands,
situated at but a little distance from the continent, there were only
five species of animals, the largest of which was not bigger than a
rabbit? Than this fact, as affirmed by Laet, Acosta, and Father du
Tertre, in their different histories, no stronger proof can be adduced
of the empty and desart state of this new-discovered world.
M. Fabry, who travelled for fifteen months over the western parts of
America, beyond the Mississippi, assured me that he sometimes did
not meet a single man for the space of 300 or 400 leagues; and all
our officers who went from Quebec to the Ohio, and from that river
to Louisiana, agree that it is not uncommon to travel upwards of
100 leagues without seeing a single family of savages. From these
testimonies it is plain, that the most agreeable countries of this new
continent were little better than desarts; but what is more immediately
necessary to our purpose, they prove that we should distrust the
evidence of our nomenclators, who set down in their catalogues animals
as belonging to the new world which solely belong to the old, and
others as native of particular districts where in fact they never
existed; and in the same manner they have classed some animals as
natives of the old world, which belong exclusively to America.
I do not pretend to affirm positively that none of the animals which
inhabit the warm climates are not common to both. To be physically
certain of this it is necessary they should have been seen; but it is
evident, with respect to the large animals of America, that none of
them are to be found in the old continent, and very few of the small
ones. Besides, allowing there to be some exceptions, they must relate
to a trifling number of species, and in no degree affect the general
rule which I intend to establish, and which seems to me to be our only
certain guide to the knowledge of animals. This rule, which leads us
to judge of them as much by climate and disposition as from figure and
conformation, will seldom be found wrong, and it will enable us to
avoid and discover a multitude of errors. If, for example, we mean to
describe the hyæna of Arabia, we may safely affirm that it does not
exist in Lapland; but we will not say with Brisson, and some others,
that the hyæna and the glutton are the same animal; nor with Kolbe,
that the crossed-fox, which inhabits the northern parts of the new
continent, is found at the Cape of Good Hope, as the animal he mentions
is not a fox, but a jackall. But it is not my object at present to
point out all the errors of nomenclators; my intention is solely to
prove that their blunders would have been less had they paid some
attention to the differences of climates; if the history of animals
had been so far studied as to discover, which I have done, that those
of the southern parts of each continent are never found in both; and
lastly, if they had abstained from generic names, which have confounded
together a number of species, not only different, but even remote from
each other.
The true business of a nomenclator is not to enlarge his list, but to
form rational comparisons in order to contract it. Nothing can be more
easy than, by perusing all the authors on animals, and by selecting
their names and phrases, to form a table which however will always
be long, in proportion as the enquiry is superficial; while nothing
can be more difficult than to compare them with that judgment and
discernment which is necessary to reduce that table to its proper
dimensions. I said before, and now repeat, that in the whole known
part of the globe there are not above 200 species of quadrupeds,
including among them 40 species of apes. To each of these, therefore,
we had only to appropriate a name; and to retain 200 names, only a
very moderate exertion of memory is required; for what purpose then
are quadrupeds formed into classes and genera, which are nothing more
than props to serve the memory in the recollection of plants, which are
so very numerous, and often so very similar. But instead of a list of
200 quadrupeds we have volumes heaped upon volumes full of intricate
names and phrases. Why introduce an unintelligible jargon, when we may
be understood by pronouncing a simple name? Why change terms merely
to form classes? When a dozen animals are included under the name,
for example, of _the Rabbit_, why is the Rabbit itself omitted, and
must be sought for under the genus of _the Hare_? Is it not absurd
and ridiculous to form classes in which the most remote genera are
assembled together; to put in the first, for example, man and the
bat; the elephant and scaly lizard in the second; the lion and ferret
in the third; the hog and the mole in the fourth; and the rhinoceros
and the rat in the fifth? Ideas so vague and ill-conceived can never
maintain their ground. These works are destroyed by their own authors,
one edition contradicting another, and neither of them approved but
by children, or by such as are always the dupes of mystery, mistaking
the appearance of method for the reality of science. By comparing the
fourth edition of Linnæus's Systema Naturæ with the tenth, we find man
is no longer classed with the bat, but with the scaly lizard; that
the elephant, hog, and rhinoceros, instead of being classed as before
with the scaly lizard, mole, and rat, are all three huddled together
with the shrew-mouse. In the former he had reduced all quadrupeds to
five classes, but in the latter he divides them into seven. From these
alterations we may form some idea of those introduced among the genera,
and how the species have been jumbled and confounded. According to the
same author there are two species[D] of men, the man of day and the man
of night, and that these are so very distinct that they ought not to
be regarded as varieties of the same species. Is not this adding fable
to absurdity? and were it not better to remain silent with respect to
matters of which we are ignorant, than to found essential characters,
and general distinctions upon the grossest error? But to whatever
length criticisms of this kind might be extended, I shall proceed no
farther, especially as it does not form my principal object, having
already said enough to put every reader on his guard, against the
general as well as particular errors which abound so much in the works
of nomenclators.
[Footnote D: _Homo diurnus sapiens; homo nocturnus trogloditus._]
In drawing general conclusions, from what has been advanced, we shall
find that man is the only animated being in whose nature there is
sufficient strength, genius, and flexibility, to subsist and multiply
in all the different climates of the earth. It is evident that no
other animal possesses this grand privilege, for, far from being able
to multiply in every part of the globe, most of them are confined to
certain climates, and even particular districts. In every respect man
is the work of heaven, while many animals are the mere creatures of
the earth. These of one continent exist not on another, and if there
are a few exceptions, they are so changed and diminished as hardly to
be known. Can a stronger proof be given that the impression of their
form is not unalterable? that their nature, less permanent than that
of man, may in time be varied, and even absolutely changed? that from
the same cause those species which are least perfect, least active,
and furnished with the fewest engines of defence, as well as the most
delicate and the most cumbrous, have already, or will disappear, for
their very existence depends on the form which man gives to the surface
of the earth, or permits it to retain.
The prodigious Mammoth, whose enormous bones I have often viewed with
astonishment, and which were at least six times bigger than those of
the largest elephant, exists no longer; although its remains have been
found in Ireland, Siberia, Louisiana, and other places remote from each
other. Of all species of quadrupeds this was certainly the largest and
strongest, and since it has disappeared, how many smaller, weaker, and
less remarkable, must have perished, without having left any evidence
of their past existence? How many others have been improved or degraded
by the great vicissitude of the earth and waters, by the culture or
neglect of nature, by their long continuance in favourable or repugnant
climates, that they are no longer the same! and yet, next to man,
quadrupeds are beings whose nature is most fixed, and whose form most
permanent. Birds and fishes vary more: those of insects are subject
to greater variations still; and if we descend to plants, which ought
not to be excluded from animated nature, we shall be astonished at the
celerity and facility with which they vary and assume new forms.
It may not be impossible, then, without inverting the order of nature,
that all the animals of the new world originated from the same stock
as those of the old; that having been afterwards separated by immense
seas or impassable lands, they, in course of time, underwent all
the effects of a climate which was new to them, and which must also
have had its qualities changed by the very causes which produced its
separation; and that they, in consequence, became not only inferior in
size, but different in nature. But these circumstances, if true, ought
not to prevent us from considering them now as animals of different
species. From whatever causes these changes may have proceeded, whether
produced by time, climate, or soil, or whether originating with the
creation, they are not the less real. Nature is, indeed, in a perpetual
fluctuation. It is sufficient for man to watch her in his own time, to
look a little backward and forward, by way of forming a conjecture of
what she might have been formerly and what she may hereafter be.
As to the utility to be derived from this comparison of animals, it is
evident, that independent of correcting the errors of our nomenclators,
our knowledge of the animal creation will be enlarged, rendered
less imperfect and more certain; that we shall be in less hazard of
attributing to American animals, properties which belong to those of
the East Indies, because they may have the same name; that in treating
of foreign animals, from accounts given by travellers, we shall be more
able to distinguish names and facts, and to refer them to their true
species; and, in fine, that the history in which we are now engaged
will be less erroneous, and perhaps more luminous and complete.
_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._
[Illustration: FIG. 102. _Black Cougar_]
[Illustration: FIG. 101. _Tiger_]