Buffon's Natural History. Volume 06 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 06 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
There is another species which comes from the Cape of Good Hope; this
was first spoken of by M. Allamand, but more fully described by M.
Pallas, and M. Vosmaer, who had one of them alive at Amsterdam; he
says it is known at the Cape by the name of the Rock Badger, merely
because it lives under the earth and in rocks, but has no resemblance
to that animal; and, as Kolbe justly remarks, that it resembles more
the marmot than the badger, we have called it the Marmot of the Cape.
M. Vosmaer observes in his description of it, that it was about the
size of a rabbit, had a large belly, fine eyes, and black hair upon its
eyebrows, above which it had a few long black hairs that turned towards
the head, and long whiskers. Its colour was grey, or rather a yellowish
brown intermixed with black hairs, much darker upon the head and back
than upon the belly, which as well as the breast was whitish, and it
had a white stroke across the shoulders which ended at the top of the
fore-legs.
THE BEAR.
There is no animal so generally known, about which naturalists have
differed so much as the bear, their doubts and even contradictions,
with respect to the nature and manners of this animal, seem to have
arisen from their not distinguishing the different species, and
consequently ascribing to one the properties belonging to another. In
the first place, the land-bear (_fig. 92._) must not be confounded
with the sea-bear, or as it is commonly called the white bear (_fig.
93._), or bear of the frozen sea; these animals being very different
both in the form of their bodies and natural dispositions. The land
bears must be also distinguished into two species, the brown and
the black, because having neither the same inclinations nor natural
appetites, they cannot be considered as varieties of the same species.
Besides, there are some land bears that are white, but which, although
they resemble the sea-bear in colour, differ from it in every other
particular. These white land-bears we meet with in Great Tartary,
Muscovy, Lithuania, and other northern countries. It is not the rigour
of the climate which renders them white during the winter, like the
hares and ermines, for they are brought forth white and remain so all
their lives. We ought, therefore, to consider them as a fourth species,
if there were not also found bears with an intermixture of brown and
white, which denotes an intermediate race between the white land-bear,
and the brown or black, consequently the former is only a variety of
one of those species.
_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._
[Illustration: FIG. 92. _Brown Bear._]
[Illustration: FIG. 93. _White Bear._]
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