al
classification we have so often illustrated," &c.

Let us not be confounded with high-sounding terms; let us rather
endeavour to ascertain the meaning of them, if indeed they possess a
meaning. Here we have, under the head of "_Genus_ Bos--the Natural
Types"--(see p. 178), certain words arranged in regular columns, which,
at a first glance, appear as though they were intended to bear some
relation to each other. But let us ask the most ordinary observer, or
the most profound observer, or the observer of any grade or shade
between these two extremes, what resemblance--what relation--what
analogy--can be discovered between an ordinary bull (_Taurus_) and a
man, a monkey, or a bat (_Primates_); or between Taurus and the
_Incessores_ (Perching Birds)? Or between Buffaloes, whose horns are
partially covered with skin (_Dermaceros_), and cocks and hens
(_Rasores_)? Can any one say wherein consists the similarity between a
dwarf Zebu and a Mouse, or a Flamingo? Yet this is the material of
which the columns are composed.

But one of the most unhappy of Mr. Swainson's speculations is that
wherein he represents the _Bos Scoticus_, or wild ox, as the type of "an
_untameable savage_ race, which preserves, even in the domestication of
a park, all that fierceness which the ancient writers attributed to the
wild bulls of Britain and the European continent. Let those who imagine
that the influence of civilization, of care, and of judicious treatment,
will alter the natural instinct of animals, look to this as a palpable
refutation of their doctrine. [!] Where is that boasted power of man
over nature? Where the fruits of long-continued efforts and fostering
protection? [!!] The _Bos Scoticus_ is as untameable now as it was
centuries ago, simply for this reason, that it is in accordance with an
unalterable law of nature; a law by which one type in every group is to
represent the worst passions of mankind--fierceness, or cruelty, or
horror." [!!!]

Who would for a moment imagine that all this grandiloquence is bestowed
upon an animal, which is so far from being fierce and untameable, that
young ones, taken and reared with ordinary cattle, become, even in the
first generation, as tame as domestic animals? [See account of
Chillingham White Cattle, p. 140.]

For a more complete satisfaction of his thought, the reader is referred
to Mr. Swainson's volume "On the Natural History and Classification of
Quadrupeds," p. 274, where he has g