Whether this fact is so or not, I do not pretend to give my opinion: if it is, I cannot but think Mr Brander’s conduct in both cases was extremely proper. The creature itself passed, by very fair means, from my possession into Mr Brander’s, who cannot doubt that I would have given it to him in preference to Mr Cleveland, if I had known he thought it of the least consequence; he was then, as having had the animal by just means in his possession, as much entitled to describe him as I was; or as the Turk, the prior possessor, who gave him to me, had he been capable, and so inclined. On the other hand, Mr Brander likewise judged very properly in refusing to publish the drawing at the request of Mr Nicander. The drawing was not justly acquired, as it was obtained by a breach of faith, and seduction of a servant, which might have cost him his bread. It was conducted with a privacy seldom thought necessary to fair dealing, nor was it ever known to me, till the young man began to be dangerously sick at Tunis, when he declared it voluntarily to me, with a contrition, that might have atoned for a much greater breach of duty. Dr Sparman attempts to conceal these circumstances. He says Mr Brander told him, that I saw this animal at Algiers, and that I employed the same painter that he did to make the drawing of him, and speaks of a painter found at Algiers as readily as if he had been at the gates of Rome or Naples. These are the wretched subterfuges of low minds, as distant from science as they are from honour and virtue. Why, if the animal was equally known to Mr Brander and me, did he not, when writing upon it, give his name, his manners, the uses to which he was destined, and the places where he resided? why send to Algiers for an account of him, after having him so long in his possession, since at Algiers he was probably as great a stranger as he was at Stockholm? why call him a fox, or pronounce his genus, yet write to Algiers for particulars to decide what that genus was? The Count of Buffon[55], content with the merit of his own works, without seeking praise from scraps of information picked up at random from the reports of others, declares candidly, that he believes this animal to be as yet anonyme, that is, not to have a name, and in this, as in other respects, to be perfectly unknown. If those that have written concerning it had stopt here likewise, perhaps the loss the public would have suffered by wanting their observations would not have been accounted a great detriment to natural history.