Goats have been alfo much negleiled m America. Yet they are very prolific here, bearing twice or three times a year, and from one to five kids at a birth. Monf.
de BufFon has been fenfible of a difference in this circumftance in favour of America''^.
But what are their greateft weights, 1 cannot fay. A large fheep here weighs loolb. I obferve Monf. D'Aubenton calls a ram of 62lb. one of the middle fizef. But to fay what are the extremes of growth in thefe and the other domeftic animals of America, would require information of which no one individual is poffeffed. The weights aftually known and ftated in the third table preceding will fuffice to fhow, that we may conclude, on probable grounds, that, with equal food and care, the climate of America will preferve the races of domeftic animals as large as the European ftock from which they are de- rived; and confequently that the third member of Monf. de Buffon's aflertion, * xvni. 96. t IX. 41.
that the domeftic animals are fubjefl: to degeneration from the climate of Ameri- ca, is as probably wrong as the firfl and fecond were certainly fo.
That the laft part of it is erroneous, which afiirms that the fpecies of American quadrupeds are comparatively few, is evi- dent from the tables taken together. By thefe it appears that there are an hundred fpecies aboriginal of America. Monf. de Buffon fuppofes about double that number exifting on the whole earth*. Of thefe Europe, Afia, and Africa, furnifti fuppofe 126; that is, the 26 common to Europe and America, and about 100 which are not in America at all. The American fpecies then are to thofe of the reft of the earth, as 100 to 126, or 4 to 5. But the refidue of the earth being double the ex- tent of America, the exaft proportion would have been but as 4 to 8.