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They observed by my teeth, which they viewed with great exactness, that I was a carnivorous animal; yet most quadrupeds being an overmatch for me, and field mice, with some others, too nimble, they could not imagine how I should be able to support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects, which they offered, by many learned arguments, to evince that I could not possibly do.
But taste is proverbially a subject concerning which there is no accounting by reason, as we must confess when we find snakes, lizards, rats, mice, and weasels among Australian dainties. The smaller quadrupeds are not skinned before they are cooked, but are dressed with the skin, the fur being only singed off; and hunger renders these not only palatable but digestible.
Now whether a body so constructed lie prone in the water, like a Fish, or be lifted on imperfect legs, like a Reptile, or be balanced on two legs, while the front limbs become wings, as in Birds, or be raised upon four strong limbs terminating in paws or feet, as in Quadrupeds, or stand upright with head erect, while the limbs consist of a pair of arms and a pair of legs, as in Man, does not in the least affect that structural conception under which they are all included.
Another striking difference between monkeys and men is that the former never walk with ease in an erect posture, but always use their arms in climbing or in walking on all-fours like most quadrupeds.
The cat assumed a kind of ascendancy among the quadrupeds sitting in state in Scott's arm-chair, and occasionally stationing himself on a chair beside the door, as if to review his subjects as they passed, giving each dog a cuff beside the ears as he went by.
When he has made choice of his victim, he springs upon the neck, and placing one paw upon the back of the head, while he seizes the muzzle with the other twists the head round with a sudden jerk which dislocates the spine, and deprives it instantaneously of life: sometimes, especially when satiated with food, he is indolent and cowardly, skulking in the gloomiest depths of the forest, and scared by the most trifling causes, but when urged by the cravings of hunger, the largest quadrupeds, and man himself, are attacked with fury and success.
The vicunas, on the contrary, prefer the smooth turf of the table plains, over which they dart with the swiftness of the deer. Both are of the same family of quadrupeds, but with this very essential difference the one is a dweller of the level plain, the other of the rocky declivity; and nature has adapted each to its respective habitat."
A very large number of birds appear to be as strictly limited by watery barriers as are quadrupeds; and as they have been so much more attentively collected, we have more complete materials to work upon, and are able to deduce from them still more definite and satisfactory results.
The lad sat his horse like a skilled equestrian, and indeed it would be hard to find his superior in that respect throughout that broad stretch of sparsely settled country. Those who live on the American frontier are trained from their earliest youth in the management of quadrupeds, and often display a proficiency that cannot fail to excite admiration.
He was associated with Dr. Bachman of Philadelphia, in the preparation of a work on "The Quadrupeds of America," in six large volumes, the drawings for which were made by his two sons; and, later on, published his "Biography of American Quadrupeds," a work similar to the "Biography of the Birds."
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