CHAP. XXIV - Functions and Instincts. Mammalians

Summary

We are now arrived at the last and highest Class of the Animal Kingdom, to which man himself belongs, and of which he forms the summit: but though he may be said to belong to it in some respects, in others he stands aloof from it, as an insulated animal, and one exalted far above it, being created rather to govern its members, than to be the associate of the highest of them.

This Class includes many animals which are of the greatest utility to man, and without which he could scarcely exist, at least not in comfort; and others again that attack him and his property; and though the fear of him, in some degree, still remains upon them, also often excite that passion in his breast. But he of all animals is the only one, that by the exercise of his reasoning powers and faculties, can arm himself with factitious weapons enabling him to cope with the superior strength, the fierceness, claws, and teeth of the tiger or the lion, and to lay them dead at his feet when in the very act of springing upon him.

The animals of this Class, that are terrestrial, are all quadrupeds, and are mostly covered with fur or hair, longer or shorter, though in some, these hairs become quills, as in the porcupine, or spines, as in the hedgehog; others, like the serpents and lizards, are protected by scales, as the Manis; and some are incased in a hard coat of armour, often consisting of pieces so united as to form a kind of mosaic, as the armadillo, the Chlamyphorus, and probably the Megatherium.