Janesei, too, and the hedge-hog, urged by hunger, will frequently devour their own young. Even caterpillars will prey upon each other; particularly that species which attaches itself to the oak. But the violet crabs of the Carribbee Islands have a propensity even more disgusting than this: for in their annual peregrinations to the sea shore, all those which become accidentally maimed, are fastened upon by the others, and devoured with the most ferocious rapacity. They never attack a fellow crab, until it is incapable of resistance. The propensity of some men for their own species, as food, has been, of late years, so decisively proved, that nothing but the profoundest ignorance, in respect to the analogies of Nature, can doubt of its truth. In civilized states, what can be more disgusting than the antipathies which neighbouring nations, and even provinces, entertain for each other? Such as that between the French and English; the Tuscans and Venetians; the Piedmontese and Genoese; the Neapolitans and Romans; the Spaniards and Portuguese. But instances may be produced, in which animals forget their natural antipathies. In Cairo, vultures, crows, kites, and dogs, all equally rapacious, feed amicably upon the same carcase. Even turtledoves are allowed to live with them in peace. Sir Thomas Winnington's gamekeeper brought up a brace of partridges; a brace of pheasants; and a couple of spaniels. These animals mixed with the greatest harmony, and frequently laid down together by the gamekeeper's fireside. But instances far more remarkable than these occur in the page of experience. That lions will permit dogs to live with them in the same cage is well ascertained: but that they will reside in harmony with bears, is not so generally known. An ancient writer, however, assures us, that a dog, a bear, and a lion, lived together, not only in peace, but in affection. At length the dog, having by accident offended the bear, the bear killed him : upon which the lion, who had been more particularly attached to the dog, revenged his death by destroying the bear. I have, also, seen living in perfect harmony in one cage, a dog, a cat, a mouse, a white mouse, a rat, three sparrows, and two Guinea pigs. In the temple of the chief goddess, in Syria, were horses, lions, eagles, and a multitude of tame animals; in the lake sacred fishes. The kings of Babylon, too, had large menageries. The Romans kept camelopards, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, elephants, lions, leopards, tigers, hyænas, and crocodiles in large numbers; for the purpose of exhibiting them in the public shows. Augustus exhibited no less than thirty-six crocodiles at one time; and Pompey five hundred lions. But the largest show of wild beasts, ever witnessed, was at the cost of Probus; in which were exhibited a thousand fallow deer, a thousand stags, a thousand chamois, and a thousand wild boars: two hundred lions and lionesses; two hundred Lybian and Syrian leopards; and three hundred bears. Since the menageries of Regent's Park and the Surrey Gardens have been established, the display of Nature, added to the splendour of the company, on gala days, is beyond any thing of a similar kind, I should suppose, the earth can exhibit. In the latter we had the pleasure of seeing a lion, a lioness, and a tigress, at peace in one den, and lapping, harmoniously, out of the same vessel. The joy of the hyænas, at the sight of water, was scarcely to be conceived; nor the shrieks and cries, which followed, on their keepers' disappointing their thirst. The joy of the lions, at the sight of their meat, was more moderate; but when the keeper taunted them with it, putting it near the bars, withdrawing it, and then showing it them again, their rage was unbounded! They sprang, gnawed, snarled, and roared; giving a true and awful picture of what they are, in moments of their fiercest passion, in the wilderness and the desert. "Had man, with his reason," thought I, "the might and awful passions of the lion, what an horrific arena would this world become!" It was, indeed, the sublimest picture of passion, we had ever seen; and so powerful was its effect upon our feelings, that we all felt an impression, almost to tears. "And the fear of you, and the Moses has a fine passage: dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air." To ensure this result, the eyes of animals are created with lenses, which make every object appear many times larger than it really is. A curious spectacle was, some time since, presented at our theatres. It was entitled "The Lions of Mysore." The tale is this. Sudhusing, being pursued by Hyder Ali with all the fury of an Oriental despot, forms a league with the beasts of the forest. He sleeps with a lion, and has two other lions to guard him. These lions were not (as is usual on the stage) stuffed, but real ones (Pumas); who were as much under the command of their master, and as zealous in his defence, as if they had been dogs. The master, in the same manner, regarded his lions as he would the most faithful of dogs. Had Pliny related such a matter, we should be tempted, perhaps, to have regarded the whole as a fable. That the ancients, however, brought animals on the stage, is evidenced from the passage, where Cicero inquires of Marcus Marius what pleasure it could afford a judicious spectator to see a thousand mules prancing about the stage, in the tragedy of Clytemnestra. But I think they had never an exhibition equal to this. A friend, the other day, confessed that, in his opinion, animals were happier than men; because they had many of the faculties of man; and yet, unattended by sin. "If, however," continued he, "we are angry with Nature for having made certain descriptions of men, we may be equally so, for a Tasso has a similar picture in his Rinaldo, can. viii. having made the poppy, the nightshade, the lion and the crocodile." St. Pierre informs us, that he, one day, expressed his astonishment to Rousseau, that philosophers should have been so unfaithful to their reason and conscience, as to insist, that animals are mere machines, without will, choice or sensibility. "The solution is this," answered Rousseau ; when man begins to reason, he ceases to feel.” 66 A dispute once existed among the stoics, whether or not vices and virtues were animals ! The idea appears ridiculous; yet it is certain, that one vice will beget other vices; and one virtue other virtues. They had, therefore, one of the rules of analogy to justify the opinion. Locke asserts, that perception is the faculty, which puts the grand distinction between the animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature. Perception, then, is allowed to animals. Plutarch had, previously, extended this measure; and his Dialogue between Ulysses, Circe, and Gryllus, is intended to prove, that beasts have not only reason; but that they extend it into use. There can be little doubt of it! They have memory; they compound; they compare; and have the power of abstraction. Experience teaches these things even to superficial observers; -shall they, then, be less evident to the wise? Locke admits them. Who, then, can read of the martyrdoms of animals, so frequent in the history of Rome, without disdain for their oppressors ? Quodcunque tremendum est Dentibus, aut insigne jubis, aut nobile cornu, Lord Erskine would never allow animals to be called the brute creation; he called them the mute creation. a Vid. Seneca, Ep. cxiii. b Essay on the Human Understanding, ch. ix. s. 11. In some respects, man is in a far worse condition than any other animal; for he has superior reason sometimes, in appearance, only to render him more miserable. In Charron's de la Sagèsse, the author insists, that beasts have reason, discipline, and judgment; that they are more moderate in their pleasures, than men; and, therefore, far more happy. If this is correct, we may, perhaps, call in question Akenside's assertion, in regard to the peculiar privilege of man :— Of all Th' inhabitants of earth, to man alone To truth's eternal measures. Milton says, that God takes no account of the actions of animals; but I am, by no means certain, that man is the only animal, that recognises a Deity. I sometimes think otherwise c. e Blumenbach informs us, that though the situation of the heart in animals is different from that in man, the internal structure is the same; that the tongue is not the organ of taste in all animals ; that the sense of touch is possessed by only four classes: mammalia; a few birds; serpents; and, probably, insects: and that insects have also the senses of smelling and hearing, though the organs have not yet been decisively pointed out. There is nothing in animals to be compared with the human hand h. Yet some quadrupeds, many insects, many fishes, a Paradise Lost, b. iv. b Cicero says he is :-" Ex tot generibus nullum est animal præter hominem quod habeat notitiam aliquam Dei."-De Legibus. • Some authors believe in three orders of souls ;-the vegetable, sensible, and natural-for vegetables, brutes, and man. d Manual of Comparative Anatomy, p. 155. f P. 259. • P. 264. & P. 277. 286. h The human hand is so beautifully formed, every effort of the will is answered so instantly, as if the hand itself were the seat of that will, that the very perfection of the instrument makes us insensible to its use; we use it as |