tion. The instruments the beavers employ are four strong and sharp teeth; two fore feet, the claws of which are divided; two hind feet, with membranes, or webbed; and a tail covered with scales, formed like an oblong trowel. With these few utensils, they shame our masons and carpenters, provided as they are with trowels, squares, and hatchets. With their teeth they cut all the wood they require for building; they make use of their fore feet to dig the ground, and to soften and mix the clay; their tail supplies the place of a wheel-barrow to carry their mortar or clay, and afterwards serves as a trowel to plaster it

on.

The works of the beaver have, then, the greatest resemblance to those of man; and if we were to judge by the first impression they make upon us, we should think them rational, and acting from reflection. But if they were capable of reflecting, they would build differently now from what they did formerly; they would continually improve: But they have always followed the same method, and have never gone out of the line Nature prescribed them. Thus, the beavers now build exactly the same houses they built before the deluge. But this does not render them unworthy of our attention and admiration, as of all animals we know they come the nearest to human reason. We need only observe them, to be convinced that beasts are not mere machines, but that all their actions and motions are directed by a higher principle. Yet, what infinite difference has the Creator placed between them in their faculties! How much superior is the instinct of the beaver to that of the sheep! and what divine wisdom is shewn in these degrees, by which the brute creation insen

sibly draws near to man! May we profit by the discoveries made of the different faculties of animals, and may we make use of them, by more and more improving our knowledge and love of the Creator of all beings.

ANIMALS CONSIDERED AS EXAMPLES TO MAN KIND OF VICES AND VIRTUES.

THE study of animated nature furnishes us with many pleasing ideas, especially as it gives us every where proofs of the divine wisdom and goodness; but I do not know whether we attend as much as we ought to the lessons of morality it seems intended to convey. Had man continued in a state of innocence, he must still, I should suppose, have been capable of improvement. Life would have been to him a state not only of trial, but of instruction; and it is natural to believe, that the animals, which it pleased his Creator to bring before him (that, seeing their different dispositions, he might learn to call them by suitable names), were intended to be his instructors, as to the difference between good and evil, which in himself he would not have experienced, if he had never sinned. If, from the apparent sufferings of some animals, and the seeming cruelty, tyranny, and oppression, exercised by others, and from the various exertions of the tender, as well as of the violent passions which we may observe in the brute creation, man was to learn to hate the one, and love the other, a reason why things are so (at least with regard to ourselves) must

be

be allowed. It is remarkable that compassion belongs to man alone. It is spoken of God in a metaphorical sense; for we cannot suppose the Deity to suffer with his creatures, as we do for each other. In God is mercy, mercy free and infinite; in man, compassion for all created beings. In the brute creation some few instances of affection are found; no compassion properly so called; no free disinterested pity. Some virtues, the brute creatures, especially the domestic animals, may teach us; and doubtless they were intended to do so. The innocent lamb, in a language more powerful than words, instructs us to practise the gentle meek arts of persuasion. The obedient ox and cow inculcate mild submission. The ass is an example of patience; the generous horse of activity and aptness to receive instruction. The goat teaches us to value liberty. The dog is an example of fidelity and kind attention; the cat of various domestic virtues.Friendship seems unknown, or but faintly expressed, amongst animals, excepting dogs and horses; and in them it is chiefly towards man. Nor is conjugal affection observable, except in the feathered race; among whom the common dunghill cock is distinguished by his preference of his wives to himself in the circumstance of food; also the singing birds in their attendance on the hen, whose cares the cock shares, or at least endeavours to alleviate. But the shining quality in animals is parental affection, at least in the female sex. The vices which the dumb animals teach us to avoid are much greater, and more in number, than their virtues. The gluttony, sloth, and filth of the hog, we detest. The dog, when fawning on his oppressor, is an object of contempt. The camel, though useful, seems framed

for

for slavery. The pride and ill-nature of the peacock we dislike as much as his voice. The turkey is a pattern of all the vices in man; and is an exception, as well as the hog, to the moral character of the domestic beasts and birds. The elephant is in many things admirable; but his base concurrence towards enslaving his fellows, his submitting to be the executioner of tyranny in destroying criminals, and his mad rage on many occasions, cancel all his pretensions to reason.

Though what is here mentioned may be stiled common place, yet so long as mankind are inattentive, such things may properly be pointed out, and much more might be said. The beaver, if contrasted with that horrible creature called the glutton, the bee with the wasp, the ant with the fleshfly, would teach us, as well as the domestic animals, to do good, and avoid evil. But the subject is almost inexhaustible. I will therefore conclude with a part of the creation more numerous perhaps than all the rest put together; I mean the fish, both those with scales, and those which have shells, but all of the oviparous kind; for the viviparous are like the quadrupeds as to their moral endowments. They seem to travel in vast bodies, not from any love of society, but merely because they are born in the same or in neighbouring situations, and live on the same food, which they find near the coasts where they themselves are to feed us. They are driven in by the large fish which prey upon them, but which they seem neither to fear nor to hate. Conjugal and parental love do not exist among them, any more than friendship or compassion. Vanity, pride, envy, or hatred, they are strangers to. If any passion, beyond an appetite for food, exists among these, or the various kinds of shell-fish, it can only be conjectured

Re

conjectured from the circumstance of lobsters sometimes wanting a claw, from which we suppose they fight; but it may not be so. Fish want no assistance from man; nor do they by their ac tions call for it; nor have they any sound, as far as we know, whereby to express sorrow or joy. Appetite for food will tame a carp; and it once produced a learned fish: but these are the only proofs of any capacity for improvement. Perhaps the lively motions of the small fry, and of the golden fish, which give us an idea of joy, are merely owing to their eagerness for prey. Fish, then, seem to be absolutely void of reason. moved from the sight of man, they can only instruct the attentive inquisitive mind. Such they may teach to despise a state of mute insensibility, and to be thankful for the pleasing sensations man enjoys from a due exertion of his passions, and for that religion which teaches him to know how to govern them. It may also check the pride of man, to reflect, that so large a portion of animated nature as that which the waters contain, is made wholly independent of him as to food and enjoyment; and that, when degenerated into a savage state, he is himself reduced to seek a maintenance from them: the last resource of a kind Providence to supply the want and misery which sloth and inattention have brought upon the hu