or to the protracted wretchedness of a life flowly wafted by fcarcity of food. Is it then to see the world filled with drooping, fuperannuated, half starved, helpless and unhelped animals, that you would alter the prefent fyftem of purfuit and prey?

2. Which fyftem is also to them the spring of motion and activity on both fides. The pursuit of its prey, forms the employment, and appears to conftitute the pleasure, of a confiderable part of the animal creation. The ufing of the means of defence, or flight, or precaution, forms also the business of another part. And even of this latter tribe, we have no reason to suppose, that their happiness is much molested by their fears. Their danger exifts continually; and in fome cafes they feem to be fo far fenfible of it, as to provide, in the best manner they can, against it; but it is only when the attack is actually made upon them, that they appear to fuffer from it. To contemplate the insecurity of their condition with anxiety and dread, requires a degree of reflection, which (happily for themselves) they do not poffefs. A bare, notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its enemies, is as playful an animal as any other.

3. But,

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3. But, to do juftice to the question, the fyftem of animal deftruction ought always to be confidered in ftrict connection with another property of animal nature, viz. fuperfecundity. They are countervailing qualities. One fubfifts by the correction of the other. In treating, therefore, of the fubject under this view, (which is, I believe, the true one,) our business will be, first, to point cut the advantages which are gained by the powers in nature of a fuperabundant multiplication; and, then, to fhew, that these advantages are so many reafons for appointing that fyftem of animal hoftilities, which we are endeavouring to account for.

In almost all cafes nature produces her fupplies with profufion. A fingle cod fish spawns, in one season, a greater number of eggs, than all the inhabitants of England amount to. A thousand other inftances of prolific generation might be ftated, which, though not equal to this, would carry on the increase of the fpecies with a rapidity which outruns calculation, and to an immeasurable extent. The advantages of fuch a conftitution are two: first, that it tends to keep the world always full.; whilft, fecondly, it allows the proportion between the feveral

feveral fpecies of animals to be differently modified, as different purposes require, or as different fituations may afford for them room and food. Where this vaft fecundity meets with a vacancy fitted to receive the fpecies, there it operates with its whole effect; there it pours in its numbers, and replenishes the wafte. We complain of what we call the exorbitant multiplication of fome troublesome insects, not reflecting that large portions of nature might be left void without it. If the accounts of travellers may be depended upon, immense tracts of foreft in North America would be nearly lost to sensitive existence if it were not for gnats. "In the thinly inhabited regions of America, in which the waters ftagnate and the climate is warm, the whole air is filled with crowds of thefe infects." Thus it is, that, where we looked for folitude and deathlike filence, we meet with animation, activity, enjoyment; with a busy, a happy, and a peopled world. Again; hofts of mice are reckoned amongst the plagues of the north-east part of Europe; whereas vaft plains in Siberia. as we learn from good authority, would be lifeless without them. The Cafpian defarts are converted by their prefence into crowded

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warrens.

warrens.

Between the Volga and the Yaik, and in the country of Hyrcania, the ground, fays Pallas, is in many places covered with little hills, raised by the earth caft out in forming the burrows. Do we then fo envy these. blissful abodes, as to pronounce the fecundity by which they are fupplied with inhabitants, to be an evil; a fubject of complaint, and not of praife? Further; by virtue of this fame. fuperfecundity, what we term deftruction, becomes almost inftantly the parent of life. What we call blights, are, oftentimes, legions of animated beings claiming their portion in the bounty of nature. What corrupts the produce of the earth to us, prepares it for them. And it is by means of their rapid multiplication, that they take poffeffion of their pasture: a flow propagation would not meet the opportunity.

But in conjunction with the occafional use of this fruitfulness, we obferve, alfo, that it allows the proportion between the feveral fpecies of animals to be differently modified, as different purposes of utility may require. When the forefts of America come to be cleared, and the fwamps drained, our gnats will give place to other inhabitants. If the population of Europe should spread to the north

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north and the eaft, the mice will retire before the husbandman and the fhepherd, and yield their ftation to herds and flocks. In what concerns the human fpecies, it may be a part of the scheme of Providence that the earth should be inhabited by a shifting, or perhaps a circulating population. In this œconomy it is poffible that there may be the following advantages. When old countries are become exceedingly corrupt, fimpler modes of life, purer morals, and better inftitutions may rife

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in new ones, whilft fresh foils reward the cultivator with more plentiful returns. Thus the different portions of the globe come into ufe in fucceffion as the refidence of man; and, in his abfence, entertain other guests, which, by their rapid multiplication foon fill the chafin. In domefticated animals we find the effect of their fecundity to be, that we can always command numbers: we can always have as many of any particular fpecies as we please, or as we can fupport. Nor do we complain of its excefs; it being much more easy to regulate abundance, than to fupply fcarcity.

But then this fuperfecundity, though of great occafional use and importance, exceeds the ordinary capacity of nature to receive or fupport

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