Part 18

Some authors suppose that the sow badger, and the _taxus suillus_, of which Aldrovandus has given a figure, to be the same as the coati; but if we consider that the sow-badger, of which hunters speak, is supposed to be found in France, and even in some colder climates of Europe, and that, on the contrary, the coati is only known in the southern parts of America, this idea must be rejected, as having no foundation to support it; as the figure given by Aldrovandus is nothing more than a badger, to which the snout of a hog has been added. That author does not say this _taxus suillus_ was drawn from Nature, nor does he give any description of the animal itself; and indeed the snout alone of the coati is sufficient to distinguish it from any other quadruped.

The coati has a practice of gnawing his own tail, which, when not mutilated, is longer than his body, and which he generally rears aloft, and moves with ease in any direction. This seemingly unnatural taste of gnawing their tails is not peculiar to the coati, for some monkies, and other animals with long tails, frequently shorten them a fourth, or even one-third, by eating the flesh and the joints. From this circumstance a general inference may be drawn, namely, that in very long members, the extremities of which must consequently be very remote from the centre of sensation, the feeling must be weak, and the more so the greater the distance and the smaller the part; for if the extremities of the tails of these animals were very sensible, the pain excited would prevail over the inclination to mutilate, and they would preserve their tails with as much care as any other part of their body.

The coati is an animal of prey, which subsists on flesh and blood, and which, like the fox or marten, destroys small animals and poultry, hunts for the nests of birds, and devours their eggs; and it is, probably, from this conformity of disposition, rather than from any resemblance to the marten, that the coati has been considered as a small species of the fox.

THE AGOUTI.

The Agouti (_fig. 98._) is about the size of a hare, and has been considered by many writers as a kind of rabbit, or large rat; yet it bears a resemblance only in some trifling particulars to either, and in its natural habits it essentially differs from them both. It has the rough hair, grunting, and voracious appetite of the hog; and when fully satiated it hides the remainder of its food, like the fox, in different places. It delights in gnawing and spoiling every thing it comes near. When irritated it bites fiercely; its hair stands erect along the back, and it strikes the ground violently with its hind feet. It does not dig holes, like the rabbit, but lives in the hollows of trees. It feeds chiefly on roots, potatoes, yams, and fruits, when residing near habitations; those that reside in the woods also eat leaves, plants, and shrubs. It uses its fore paws, like the squirrel, in carrying food to its mouth; it runs very swiftly up hill, or on even ground, but its fore paws being much shorter than its hind ones, upon a descent it is in great danger of falling; it has a good sight and excellent hearing, and whenever it hears a whistle it stops to listen. They scald the agouti and dress it like a sucking pig, and the flesh of such as are fat and well fed is tolerable food, though it has always a peculiar taste, and is rather tough. When they go among the sugar-canes they are easily taken, for sinking every step in the straw and leaves, which covers the ground, a man may come up and even kill them with a stick. When in the open country it runs with great swiftness before the dogs; and having gained its retreat, nothing can force it to come out but smoke; for which purpose the hunters burn faggots and straw before the mouth of the hole, upon which the animal makes plaintive cries like that of a pig, but seldom quits the place of concealment until the last extremity. Its cry, which it repeats often when it is irritated or incommoded, is exactly like that of a young pig. When taken young they are easily tamed, and will go out and return alone. When in a wild state, they generally dwell in the woods, where the female chooses the most obscure parts, and there prepares a bed of leaves and grass for her young. They usually bring forth two or three in a year, and in a day or two afterwards, she carries them in her mouth like a cat, into the hollow of some tree, where she suckles them for a short space, for they are soon in a condition to run about and provide for themselves; from which it appears that the time required for their growth is but short, and of course the duration of their lives cannot be long.

The agouti appears to be a native of the south parts of America, not being known in the old continent. They are common in Brasil, Guiana, St. Domingo, and all the islands around. To subsist and multiply, they require a warm climate, yet they will live in France if well sheltered from wet and cold, especially in winter; it is even a stranger in the cold and temperate climates in America. In the islands there is only this one species of agouti, which we have described, but in the other places above named, it is affirmed there is another species called the _agouchi_, which is much smaller than the first; but we have the testimony of several persons who resided a long time at Cayenne, who were equally acquainted with the agouti and agouchi, that the one we have described is certainly the agouti. The latter we have never been able to procure, but the former we had alive; it was as large as a rabbit, its hair was coarse, and of a brown colour, with a small mixture of red; its upper lip was cloven like that of the hair, its tail was shorter than that of a rabbit, its ears very short and broad, and its upper jaw was more prominent than the under; its snout was like that of the loir, and its teeth resembled the marmot's; its neck was long, its legs were slender, and on its fore feet it had four toes, and three on its hind ones. Marcgrave, and almost all naturalists after him, have said that the agouti has six toes on the hind-feet. M. Brisson is the only writer who has not copied this error of Marcgrave; but he described it from nature, and, like us, perceived only three toes on the hind-feet.

SUPPLEMENT.

M. de la Borde says, that the agouti is a very common animal in Guiana, that its flesh is as white as that of the rabbit, and is of a similar flavour; that they are hunted by dogs, taken in traps, and that the negroes take them in great numbers by whistling, or imitating their cries; that they principally feed upon nuts, which they collect and conceal in great quantities; that they are very prolific, producing as many, and as often as the rabbit; that they are easily tamed, but always retain somewhat of their savage disposition, yet if they go from home will return again of themselves; and that they keep in their holes during the night, unless the moon shines very clear, and are running about the greatest part of the day.

THE LION.

The influence of climate is marked with but slight variations in the human species; because that is entire in itself, and totally distinct from every other. Man, white in Europe, black in Africa, yellow in Asia, and copper-coloured in America, is still the same being, tinctured with the colour peculiar to the climate. And as he is formed to govern the earth, and as he has the whole globe for his habitation, it seems as if no situation was foreign to his nature; under the scorching south, or in the frozen regions of the north, he lives, he multiplies, and has been so anciently diffused over every country, that he does not appear to have a particular propensity to any. It is far otherwise with other animals; in them the influence of climate is marked with strong characteristics, because their species is diversified, and their nature is infinitely less perfect and more confined than that of man. Not only are the varieties in each species more numerous and more marked than in the human species, but even the differences in the species themselves seem to depend on the differences of climate. Some animals can only breed in hot countries, others cannot subsist but in cold ones. The lion has never inhabited the northern regions, nor has the rein-deer ever been found in the south; and perhaps no species has been universally diffused over the face of the earth, besides that of man. Each has its country, its native soil, to which it is confined by a physical necessity; each is the immediate offspring of the region which it inhabits; and it is in this sense alone we say, this animal is a native of one climate, and that a native of another. In hot countries the terrestrial animals are larger and stronger than in the frozen or temperate ones. They are also more bold and ferocious; all their natural qualities seeming to partake of the ardour of the climate. Lions born under the scorching sun of Africa or the Indies, are of all others the most fierce and formidable. Our wolves and other carnivorous animals, far from being their rivals, are hardly worthy to be their purveyors.[W] The lions of America, if they deserve to be so called, are, like the climate, infinitely more mild; and what proves that the degree of their ferocity depends on the degree of heat is, that in the same country, those which inhabit the high mountains, where the air is temperate, are different in disposition from those that dwell in the plains, where the heat is excessive. The lions of Mount Atlas, of which the top is sometimes covered with snow, have neither the boldness, strength, nor ferocity of the lions of Biledulgerid, or the desart of Zaara, whose plains are covered with burning sands. It is principally in these burning desarts that those terrible lions are found which are the dread of travellers and the scourge of neighbouring provinces. Happily for man this species is not numerous, and seems to diminish daily; for those who have travelled through this part of Africa affirm they are by no means so numerous now as they were formerly; and Mr. Shaw, in his travels, says, the Romans drew fifty times as many lions from Lybia, to combat in their amphitheatres, as are now to be found in the whole country. It is also remarked, that in Turkey, Persia, and India, lions are much less numerous than they were in ancient times. Since this animal preys on every other species of quadruped, and is himself the prey of none, it is obvious that its decrease can only be occasioned by the increase of mankind, who are the only beings in nature capable of making head against this king of beasts; and it must be allowed, powerful as he may be, he is no match for even a Hottentot or negro, who often attack him, and very seldom without coming off victorious. As the lion has no enemy but man, and his species being reduced to the fiftieth, or even the tenth part of what it was formerly, it follows that the human species instead of having suffered a considerable diminution since the time of the Romans, as is by some pretended, is on the contrary more generally diffused, and more numerous even in such countries as Lybia. The industry of man increases in proportion with his number, but that of other animals remains always the same. Every destructive species, like that of the lion, seems to be driven to distant countries, or reduced to small numbers, not only because man has become every where more numerous, but because he has become more skillful and invented dreadful arms of destruction, which nothing can resist; arms, which it were well, had they never been employed against aught but lions and tigers.

[W] There is a species of lynx which is called the lion's purveyor.

This superiority of numbers, and industry in man, which has subdued the lion, serves also to enervate and discourage him, for he is brave only in proportion to the success of his encounters. In the vast desarts of Zaara, in the burning sands which separate Mauritania and Negro-land, and in all the desarts of Asia and Africa, where man has disdained to fix his habitation, lions are still numerous and preserve their natural force and courage. Accustomed to measure their strength with every animal they meet, the habit of conquering renders them intrepid and terrible. Having never experienced the power of man, they have no apprehension of him, but boldly face and hold him in defiance. Wounds enrage, without repressing their ardour; they are not daunted even by the appearance of numbers. A single lion of the desart often attacks a whole caravan, and if, after an obstinate engagement, he finds himself overpowered, instead of flying, he retreats fighting, and faces the enemy to the last. On the contrary, those lions which inhabit the peopled countries of Morocco, or India, having become acquainted with man, and experienced the superiority of his arms, have lost their native courage to such a degree, that they are to be scared away with a shout, and seldom attack any but the unresisting flocks and herds, which even women and children are sufficient to protect against them.

This alteration, this amelioration in the disposition of the lion, proves that he might be tamed to a certain degree, and admit of a species of education. We read in history of lions being yoked to triumphal cars, led forth to the field of battle, or let loose to the chace, and that faithful to their master, they never exerted their strength or courage but against his enemies. Certain it is that the lion when taken young, and bred up with domestic animals, becomes familiar and sports innocently among them; that he will even be caressing to his master, and that if his natural ferocity returns, he seldom exercises it against his benefactor. As his passions are strong, and his appetites vehement, we ought not to presume that the impressions of education will always overbalance them; and therefore it would be dangerous to suffer him to remain too long without food, or wantonly to persist in irritating or tormenting him. He is not only enraged by bad treatment, but remembers it and meditates revenge; in the same manner he also remembers benefits and endeavours to shew his gratitude for them. In support of this we might recapitulate a number of facts, in which however there is probably much exaggeration; but it is sufficient that they prove his anger is noble, his courage magnanimous, and his disposition grateful and susceptible of impression. He has often been seen to despise contemptible enemies, and to pardon their insults when it was in his power to punish them. When in confinement he appears gentle, will caress the hand that feeds him, and will sometimes spare the lives of those animals which are thrown to him for prey; he will even live peaceably with them, spare them part of his subsistence, and has even been known to want food himself rather than be the means of depriving them of that life which his generosity had spared. The lion cannot be said to be cruel, since he acts from necessity and never kills more than he consumes; while the tiger, the wolf, and all the inferior species, such as the fox, marten, polecat, ferret, &c. kill without remorse, and seem rather to satisfy their malignity than their hunger.

The outward form of the lion speaks the superiority of his internal qualities. His figure is striking and grand; his look confident and bold; his gait stately, and his voice tremendous. His bulk is not overgrown like that of the elephant, or the rhinoceros; nor is his shape clumsy like the hippopotamus, or the ox. He is in every respect compact and well-proportioned; a perfect model of strength joined with agility. He is muscular, bold, and neither charged with fat nor unnecessary flesh. He manifests his muscular power by the ease with which he makes prodigious bounds and leaps; by the strong and swift movements of his tail, which is alone sufficient to strike a man to the earth; by the facility with which he moves the skin of his face, and particularly that of his forehead, which adds greatly to the expressions of fury in his countenance; and, lastly, by the power he has of moving the hair of his mane, which not only bristles up but is agitated on all sides when he is enraged.

To these eminent qualities the lion joins all the dignity of his species. By dignity of species I mean those whose nature is permanent, invariable, and not subject to degradation. In those animals to which this singular advantage belongs, the characteristics are so strongly marked, that they cannot be mistaken nor confounded with any other species. In man, the noblest being of the creation, the species is sole and entire, because all the individuals of it, of whatever race, climate, or complexion, may intermix and produce together; and because it cannot be said that any animal approaches to man in any natural degree. The horse is less noble considered as a species than as an individual, since the neighbouring one of the ass is so near, that one of each species will produce animals which Nature reprobates as bastards, unworthy of either race, and renders incapable of perpetuating either species from whence they sprung, but which in itself exhibiting a mixture of both, proves, beyond a doubt, their close affinity. The species of the dog is perhaps less noble, because he seems to be allied to that of the wolf, the fox, and jackall, who may all be considered as degenerate branches of the same family. In descending by degrees to the inferior species, such as the rabbit, weasel, rat, &c. we shall find that each of them has such a number of collateral branches that we cannot trace the original stock; and, lastly, in the tribes of insects, each species is accompanied with such a number of approximate ones that we are obliged to consider them as belonging to a certain genera. This is the only use of what is called _method_ in Natural History, which ought never to be employed unless in the difficult enumerations of small objects, as it becomes useless and ridiculous when treating of beings of the first rank. To class man with the monkey, or to say that a lion is a cat with a long mane and tail, is rather to degrade and disfigure Nature than to describe and denominate her works. The species of the lion, therefore is one of the most noble since it is most entire, and cannot be confounded with those of the tiger, leopard, ounce, &c. and since those species, which appear to be the least remote from the lion, are so little distinct from each other, as to have been perpetually mistaken and confounded by travellers and nomenclators.

The largest lions are about eight or nine feet in length, from the snout to the tail, which is four feet long, and are between four and five feet high. Those of the small size are about five feet and a half long, three feet and a half high, and their tail rather more than three feet long. In all her dimensions the lioness is about one fourth less than the lion. Aristotle divides lions into the greater and smaller, and the latter, he says, are short in proportion, have their hair more frizzled, and are less courageous than the former. He adds, that in general all lions are yellow. The first of these assertions appears doubtful, since no traveller has mentioned lions with frizzled hair; some authors, indeed, who, in other respects do not merit entire confidence, speak of a tiger with curled hair found at the Cape of Good Hope; but almost all testimonies agree as to the colour of the lion, which is uniformly yellow on the back and within on the sides and belly. Ælian and Opian have asserted, that in Ethiopia the lions are as black as the men; that in India there are some white and others spotted and striped with red, black, and blue; but this is not confirmed by any authentic testimony, for Marco Polo the Venetian, does not speak of these striped and spotted lions as if he had seen them, and Gesner observes that he only mentions them on the authority of Ælian. It appears on the contrary, that there are few or no varieties in these species; that the lions of Asia and Africa perfectly resemble each other, and that those of the plains differ less in colour from those which dwell in the mountains than in size.

_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._

The lion (_fig. 99._) is furnished with a mane, or rather long hair, which covers all his fore-parts, and becomes longer as he advances in age; but the lioness, (_fig. 100._) however old, is without this appendage. The American animal, which the natives of Peru call Puma, and the Europeans Lion, has no mane, and is smaller, weaker, and more cowardly, than the real lion. It is not impossible that the mildness of the climate in South America might have such influence on the nature of the lion as to strip him of his mane, reduce his size, and repress his courage; but it appears absolutely impossible that this animal, which inhabits the tropical regions only, and to whom Nature, to all appearance, has shut up every avenue to the north, should pass from the southern part of Asia or Africa into America, those continents being divided towards the south by immense seas. From this circumstance it is probable that the puma is not the lion, deriving its origin from those of the old continent and since degenerated, but that he is an animal peculiar to America, like other animals found on the new continent.

When the Europeans first discovered America, the quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, plants, and almost every thing appeared to be different from what they had seen before. Of this new world it was therefore necessary to denominate the principal objects. As the names given by the natives were for the most part barbarous and difficult to pronounce or remember, names were borrowed from the European languages, especially from the Spanish and Portugueze. In this dearth of denominations, a small affinity in external appearance, size, or figure, was sufficient to attribute to unknown objects the names of those that were familiar. Hence the doubt, perplexity, and confusion which has considerably increased, since, at the same time that the productions of the new continent were receiving the denominations of those of the old one, plants and animals peculiar to the latter were transporting there in abundance. To remove this obscurity, and to avoid falling into perpetual errors, it is therefore necessary to distinguish carefully what belongs to the one continent from what belongs to the other. Of this distinction I shall shew the necessity in the next article, where I shall enumerate not only the animals which are natives of America, but those which have been carried thither.

M. de la Condamine, whose testimony deserves our full confidence, says expressly, that he does not know whether the American animal which the Spaniards call Lion, and the natives of Quito, Puma, deserves the name of Lion; he adds, that it is much smaller than the African lion, and that the male has no mane. Frezier also says, that the animals called lions in Peru are very different from those of Africa; that they avoid the sight of man, and commit no havock but among the cattle; and he further remarks that their heads bear a strong resemblance to the heads of both the wolf and the tiger, and have tails shorter than that of either. In more ancient relations, we are told that the lions of America by no means resemble those of Africa; that they have neither their size, nor fierceness, nor colour; that they are neither red, nor yellow, nor grey; that they have no mane, and that they have a custom of climbing up trees. Differing, then, from the lion in size, colour, form of the head, length of the tail, want of the mane, and lastly, in natural habits, no longer ought the Puma of America to be confounded with the real lion of Africa or Asia.