Part 1

Transcriber Note

Text emphasis is denoted as _Italic Text._

_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. VII.

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

1807.

T. Gillet, Printer, Wild court.

CONTENTS OF THE SEVENTH VOLUME.

Of Carnivorous Animals.

_Page_

_Of Tigers_ 1 _Animals of the Old Continent_ 4 _Animals of the New World_ 24 _Animals common to both Continents_ 33 _The Tiger_ 57 _The Panther, Ounce, and Leopard_ 68 _The Jaguar_ 81 _The Cougar_ 87 _The Lynx_ 92 _The Hyæna_ 107 _The Civet and the Zibet_ 117 _The Genet_ 129 _The Black Wolf_ 132 _The Canadian Musk-rat, and the Muscovy Musk-rat_ 133 _The Peccari, or Mexican Hog_ 141 _The Rousette, or Ternat Bat, the Rougette, or Little Ternat, and the Vampyre_ 149 _The Senegal Bat_ 162 _The Bull-dog Bat_ 163 _The Bearded Bat_ 164 _The striped Bat_ 165 _The Polatouch_ 165 _The Grey Squirrel_ 173 _The Palmist, the Squirrel of Barbary and Switzerland_ 177 _The Ant Eaters_ 181 _The Long and Short-tailed Manis_ 193 _The Armadillo_ 197 _The Three-banded_ 202 _Six-banded_ 205 _Eight-banded_ 207 _Nine-banded_ 208 _Twelve-banded_ 210 _Eighteen-banded_ 212 _The Paca_ 222 _The Opossum_ 229 _The Marmose_ 251 _The Cayopollin_ 253 _The Elephant_ 255 _The Rhinoceros_ 322

_Directions for placing the Plates in the Seventh Volume._

Page 57 Fig. 101, 102. 68 Fig. 107, 108. 77 Fig. 103, 104. 85 Fig. 105, 106. 117 Fig. 109, 110. 118 Fig. 111, 112, 113. 133 Fig. 114, 115, 116. 150 Fig. 117, 118, 119. 165 Fig. 120, 121, 122, 123. 181 Fig. 124, 125, 126. 205 Fig. 127, 128. 222 Fig. 129, 130, 131, 132. 236 Fig. 133, 134.

BUFFON'S

NATURAL HISTORY.

_OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS._

OF TIGERS.

As the word Tiger is a generic name, given several animals of different species, it is proper to begin with distinguishing them from each other. Leopards and Panthers have often been confounded together, and are called Tigers by most travellers. The Ounce, a small species of Panther, which is easily tamed, and used by the Orientals in the chace, has been taken for the Panther itself, and described as such by the name of Tiger. The Lynx, and that called the Lion's provider, have also sometimes received the name of Panther, and sometimes Ounce. In Africa, and in the southern parts of Asia, these animals are common; but the real tiger, and the only one which ought to be so called, is scarce, was little known by the ancients, and is badly described by the moderns. Aristotle does not mention him; and Pliny merely speaks of him as an animal of prodigious velocity; _tremendæ velocitatis animal_;[A] adding, that he was a much more scarce animal than the Panther, since Augustus presented the first to the Romans at the dedication of the theatre of Marcellus, while so early as the time of Scaurus, this Ædile sent 150 panthers, and afterwards 400 were given by Pompey, and 420 by Augustus, to the public shews at Rome. Pliny, however, gives no description of the tiger, or any of its characteristics. Oppian and Solinus appear to be the first who observed that the tiger is marked with long streaks, and the panther with round spots. This, indeed, is one of the characteristics which distinguishes the true tiger from a number of animals that have been so called. Strabo, in speaking of the real tiger, gives Megasthenes as his authority, for saying that in India there are tigers twice as large as the lion. The tiger then stands described by the ancients as an animal that is fierce and swift, marked with long stripes, and exceeding the lion in size; nor has Gesner, nor the other modern naturalists, who have treated of the tiger, added any thing to these observations of the ancients.

[Footnote A: Pliny Nat. Hist. lib. viii. cap. xviii.]

In the French language all those skins of which the hair is short, and are marked with round and distinct spots, are called tiger-skins, and travellers sharing in this error, have called all animals so marked by the general name of tigers; even the academy of sciences have been borne away by this torrent, and have adopted the appellation to all, although by dissection they found them materially different.

The most general cause, as we intimated in the article of the lion, of these ambiguous terms in Natural History, arose from the necessity of giving names to the unknown productions of the New World, and thus the animals were called after such of the old continent to whom they had the smallest resemblance. From the general denomination of tiger to every animal whose skin was spotted, instead of one species of that name, we now have nine or ten, and consequently the history of these animals is exceedingly embarrassed, writers have applied to one species what ought to have been ascribed to another.

To dispel the confusion which necessarily results from these erroneous denominations, particularly among those which have been commonly called tigers, I have resolved to give a comparative enumeration of quadrupeds, in which I shall distinguish, 1. Those which are peculiar to the old continent, and were not found in America when first discovered. 2. Those which are natives of the new continent, and were unknown in the old. 3. Those which existing alike in both continents, without having been carried from one to the other by man, may be considered as common to both. For which purpose it has been necessary to collect and arrange the scattered accounts given by the historians of America, and those who first visited this continent as travellers.

ANIMALS OF THE OLD CONTINENT.

As the largest animals are the best known, and about which there is the least uncertainty, in this enumeration they shall follow nearly according to their size.

Elephants belong to the Old World; the largest are found in Asia, and the smallest in Africa. They are natives of the hottest climates, and, though they will live, they cannot multiply in temperate ones; they do not propagate even in their own countries after they are deprived of their liberty. Though confined to the southern parts of the old continent their species is numerous. It is unknown in America, nor is there any animal there that can be compared to it in size and figure. The same remark applies to the Rhinoceros, which is less numerous than the elephant; he is confined to the desarts of Africa, and the forests of southern Asia; nor has America any animal that resembles him.

The Hippopotamus inhabits the banks of the large rivers of India and Africa, and is less numerous than the Rhinoceros. It is not found in America, nor even in the temperate climates of the Old Continent.

The Camel and Dromedary, so apparently similar, yet in reality so dissimilar, are very common in Asia and Arabia, and in all the eastern parts of the ancient continent. The name of camel has been given to the Lama and Pacos of Peru, which are so different from the camel as by some to have been called _sheep_, and by others _camels_ of Peru; though the pacos has nothing in common with the European sheep but the wool, and the lama resembles the camel only by the length of its neck. The Spaniards formerly carried camels to Peru; they left them first at the Canaries, whence they afterwards transported them to America; but the climate of the new world does not seem favourable to them, for though they produced, their numbers have always remained very small.

The _Giraffe_ or _Camelopard_, an animal remarkable for its height, and the length of its neck and fore legs, is a native of Africa, particularly Ethiopia, and has never spread beyond the tropics in the temperate climates of the old continent.

In the preceding article we have seen that the lion exists not in America, and that the puma of Peru is an animal of a different species; and we shall now find that the tiger and panther belong also to the old continent, and that the animals of South America, to whom those names have been applied, are also different. The real tiger is a terrible animal, and more, perhaps, to be dreaded than the lion himself. His ferocity is beyond comparison; but an idea of his strength may be drawn from his size; he is generally from four to five feet high, and from nine to fourteen in length, without including his tail; his skin is not covered with round spots, but with black stripes upon a yellow ground, which extend across the body, and form rings from one end of the tail to the other. These characteristics alone are sufficient to distinguish him from all the animals of prey belonging to the new continent, as the largest of them scarcely ever exceed the size of our mastiffs. The leopard and panther of Africa and Asia, though much smaller than the tiger, are larger than the rapacious animals of South America. Pliny, whose testimony cannot be doubted (since panthers were daily exposed, in his time, at the theatres in Rome), indicates their essential characteristics, by saying, their hair is whitish, diversified throughout with black spots, like eyes, and that the only difference between the male and female were the superior whiteness of her hair.

The American animals, which have been called tigers, have a greater resemblance to the panther, and yet their difference from that species is very evident. The first is the _Jaguara_, or _Janowra_, a native of Guiana, Brasil, and other parts of South America. Ray, with some propriety, calls the animal the Pard, or Brasilian lynx. The Portuguese call him Ounce, because they had first, by corruption, given that name to the lynx, and afterwards to the small panther of India; and the French, without his having the smallest affinity, have called him tiger. He differs from the panther in size, in the position and figure of the spots, in the colour and length of the hair, which is frizzled when young, and never so straight as that of the panther, differing also in disposition, being more savage, and cannot be tamed; still, however, the jaguar of Brasil resembles the panther more than any other animal of the new world. The second we call Cougar, by contracting the Brasilian name _cougouacou-ara_, and which the French, with still less propriety, have called the Red Tiger. From the real tiger it differs in all, and from the panther in most respects, its hair being red, and without spots; and in the form of its head, and length of his muzzle, it differs also from them both. A third species, which has also been called tiger, though equally remote, is the _Jaguarette_, which is nearly of the size of the jaguar, and resembles him in natural habits, but differs in some exterior characters. He has been called black tiger, because his hair is black, interspersed with spots of a still blacker hue. Besides these three species, and perhaps a fourth, which is smaller, that have been named after the tiger, there is another American animal, which appears to have a greater right to it, namely, the _Cat-pard_, or mountain cat, which resembles both the cat and the panther. Though smaller than either of the above three animals, it is larger than the wild cat, which it resembles in figure, but its tail is much shorter, and it differs also by having its hair diversified with black spots, long upon the back and round upon the belly. These four American animals have, therefore, very improperly been named tigers. The cougar and cat-pard I have seen alive, and am convinced they are of different species, and still more so from the tiger or panther; and as for the puma and jaguar, it is evident, from the testimony of those who have seen them, that the former is not a lion, nor the latter a tiger, and therefore, without scruple, we may pronounce, that neither the lion, tiger, nor even the panther, exist in America, any more than the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, camel, or the camelopard. All these species require a hot climate for propagation, and as none of them exist in the northern regions, it is impossible they should have had any communication with America. This general fact is too important not to be supported by every proof; we shall, therefore, continue our comparative enumeration of the animals of the old continent with those of the new.

It is generally known, that upon horses being first transported into America they struck the natives with surprise and terror; and that this animal has thriven and multiplied so fast, as to have become almost as numerous there now as it is in Europe. It is the same also with the ass, which has thriven equally in these warm climates, and from which mules have been produced, that are more serviceable than the lamas for carrying heavy loads over the mountainous parts of Chili and Peru. The Zebra is also an animal of the old continent, and which, perhaps, has never been even seen in the new; it seems to require a particular climate, and is found only in that part of Africa which lies between the Equator and the Cape of Good Hope.

Oxen were unknown in the islands and on the continent of South America. Soon after the discovery of these countries, the Spaniards transported bulls and cows to them from Europe. In 1550 oxen were employed, for the first time, in tilling the ground in the valley of Cusco. On the continent these animals multiplied prodigiously, as well as in the islands of St. Domingo, Cuba, Barlovento, &c. and in many places they even became wild. The species of horned cattle found at Mexico, Louisiana, &c. which is called the _wild ox_ or Bison, is not produced from the European oxen. The bison existed in America before our race was carried thither; and from the latter he is so different as to authorize the opinion of his being a different species. He has a rise between his shoulders, his hair is softer than wool, is longer before than behind, is curled upon the neck and along the spine of the back; he is of a brown colour, and faintly marked with some whitish spots; he has also short legs, which, like the head and neck, are covered with long hair; and the male has a long tail with a tuft of hair at the end, like that of the lion. These differences seem to be sufficient grounds for considering the ox and bison of different species, yet I will not pretend to determine they are so, because the only characteristic which identifies animals to be of the same species, is their propagating and producing similar individuals, and which fact has never been determined between the bison and the oxen of Europe. M. de la Nux, a member of the royal council of the isle of Bourbon, has favoured me with a letter, in which he says, the hunched-back ox of that island propagates with the common horned cattle; and of great advantage would it be, if persons who live in remote countries would follow the example of this gentleman, in making experimental observations upon animals. Nothing could be more easy than for the inhabitants of Louisiana, to try if the American bison would copulate with the European cow. It is probable they would produce together, and in that case it would be ascertained that the European ox, the hunched-backed species of the isle of Bourbon, the East India bull and American bison, form only one species. M. de la Nux proved by experiments, that the hunch is not an essential characteristic, since it disappeared after a few generations; and I have myself discovered that the protuberance upon a camel's back, which, though as in the bison, is very common, is not a constant characteristic, and is probably owing to the healthful state of the body, as I once saw a sickly camel which had not the smallest appearance of a lump. As to the other difference, namely, the hair being more long and soft, that may be entirely owing to the influence of the climate, as is the case with goats, hares, and rabbits. With some appearance of probability, it may be supposed, (especially if the American bison produces with the European cow) that our oxen may have found a passage over the northern districts to those of North America, and having afterwards advanced into the temperate regions of this New World, they received the impressions of the climate, and in time became bisons. But till the essential fact of their producing together be fully confirmed, I think it right to conclude that our oxen belong to the old continent, and existed not in America before they were carried thither.

To sheep America has no pretensions; they were transported from Europe, and have thriven both in the warm and temperate climates; but, however prolific, they are commonly more meagre, and their flesh less juicy and tender than those in Europe. Brasil seems to be the most favourable to them, as it is there alone that they are found loaded with fat. Guinea sheep, as well as European, have been transported to Jamaica, and they have prospered equally well. These two species belong solely to the old continent. It is also the same with goats, and those we now meet with in America in such great numbers, all originated from goats introduced from Europe. The latter has not, however, multiplied so fast at Brasil as the sheep. When the Spaniards first carried goats to Peru they were so rare as to be sold for 110 ducats a piece; but afterwards they multiplied so prodigiously as to be held of little value but for their skins; they produce there from three to five kids at a time, while in Europe they seldom have more than one or two. In all the islands they are equally numerous as on the continent. The Spaniards transported them even into the islands of the South Sea; and in the island of Juan Fernandez their increase became prodigious. But proving a supply of provisions to the free-booters who afterwards infested those parts, the Spaniards resolved to extirpate them, and for that purpose put dogs upon the island, who, multiplying in their turn, not only destroyed all the goats in the accessible parts, but became so fierce as to attack even men.

The hogs which were transported from Europe to America succeeded better, and multiplied faster, than the sheep or goat. The first swine, according to Garcilasso, sold still dearer than the first goats. Piso says the flesh of the ox and sheep is not so good at Brasil as in Europe, but that of the hog, which multiplies very fast, is better; and Laet, in his History of the New World, affirms that it is preferable at St. Domingo, to what it is in Europe. In general it may be remarked, that of all domestic animals which have been carried from Europe to America, the hog has thriven the best and most universally. In Canada and in Brasil, which includes the warmest and coldest climates of the new world, hogs multiply, and their flesh is equally good; while the goat, on the contrary, multiplies in warm and temperate climates only, and cannot maintain its species in Canada without continual supplies. The ass multiplies in Brasil, Peru, &c. but not in Canada, where neither mules nor asses are to be seen, although numbers of the latter have been transported thither in couples. Horses have multiplied nearly as much in the hot as in the cold countries throughout America; but have diminished in size, a circumstance which is common to all animals transported from Europe to America; and what is still more singular, all the native animals of America are much smaller in general than those of the old continent. Nature in their formation seems to have adopted a smaller scale, and to have formed man alone in the same mould. But to proceed in our enumeration:--The hog, then, is not a native of America, but was carried thither; and he has not only increased in a domestic state but has even become wild, and multiplied in the woods without the assistance of man. A species of hog has also been transported from Guinea to Brasil, which has likewise multiplied; it is much smaller, and seems to form a distinct species from the European hog; for although the climate of Brasil is favourable to every kind of propagation, these animals have never been known to intermingle.

Dogs, whose races are so varied, and so numerously diffused, were not found in America, unless in a few rude resemblances, which it is difficult to compare with the species at large. At St. Domingo, says Garcilasso, there were little animals called _gosques_, not unlike little dogs; but there were no dogs like those of Europe. He adds, that the latter, on being transported to Cuba and St. Domingo, had become wild, and diminished the number of cattle which had become wild also; that they committed their devastations in troops of ten or twelve, and were more destructive than wolves. According to Joseph Acosta, there were no real dogs in the West Indies, but only an animal resembling small dogs, called by the Peruvians _alcos_, which attach themselves to their masters, and seem to have nearly the same dispositions as the dog. If we may believe Father Charlevoix, who quotes no authority, "The _goschis_ of St. Domingo were little mute dogs, which served as an amusement to the ladies, and were also employed in the chace of other animals. Their flesh was good for eating, and they were of great benefit to the Spaniards during the first famines, which these people experienced, so that they would have been exhausted, had there not been numbers of them afterwards brought from the continent. Of this animal there were several sorts; of some the hair was straight, others had their bodies covered with a wool exceedingly soft; but the greatest number had only a thin covering of tender down. In colours they exceeded the varieties in the European dogs, forming an assemblage of all colours, the most lively not excepted."