few quadrupeds. These must have been carried
to them from other countries. Cook and Bougainville found no other
quadrupeds besides hogs and dogs in the South Sea Islands; and the
largest quadruped of the West India Islands, when first discovered, was
the agouti, a species of the cavy, an animal apparently between the rat
and the rabbit.

"It is true that the great continents, as Asia, Africa, the two
Americas, and New Holland, have large quadrupeds, and, generally
speaking, contain species common to each; insomuch, that upon
discovering countries which are isolated from the rest of the world,
the animals they contain of the class of quadruped were found entirely
different from those which existed in other countries. Thus, when the
Spaniards first penetrated into South America, they did not find it to
contain a single quadruped exactly the same with those of Europe, Asia,
and Africa. The puma, the jaguar, the tapir, the capybara, the llama,
or glama, and vicuna, and the whole tribe of sapajous, were to them
entirely new animals, of which they had not the smallest idea....

"If there still remained any great continent to be discovered, we
might perhaps expect to be made acquainted with new species of large
quadrupeds, among which some might be found more or less similar to
those of which we find the exuviae in the bowels of the earth. But it
is merely sufficient to glance the eye over the maps of the world and
observe the innumerable directions in which navigators have traversed
the ocean, in order to be satisfied that there does not remain any large
land to be discovered, unless it may be situated towards the Antarctic
Pole, where eternal ice necessarily forbids the existence of animal
life."(1)

Cuvier then points out that the ancients were well acquainted with
practically all the animals on the continents of Europe, Asia, and
Africa now known to scientists. He finds little grounds, therefore, for
belief in the theory that at one time there were monstrous animals on
the earth which it was necessary to destroy in order that the present
fauna and men might flourish. After reviewing these theories and beliefs
in detail, he takes up his Inquiry Respecting the Fabulous Animals
of the Ancients. "It is easy," he says, "to reply to the foregoing
objections, by examining the descriptions that are left us by the
ancients of those unknown animals, and by inquiring into their origins.
Now that the greater number of these animals