Carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, contain the elements necessary for the support of animals, as well as of vegetables. They are supplied to the graminivora in the vegetable food, which is converted into animal substance by their vital functions.

Vitality in animals, as in vegetables, is the power they have of assimilating their food, a process independent of volition, since it is carried on during sleep, and is the cause of force. Animals inhale oxygen with the air they breathe; part of the oxygen combines with the carbon contained in the food, and is exhaled in the form of carbonic acid gas. With every effort, with every breath, and with every motion, voluntary or involuntary, at every instant of life, a part of the muscular substance becomes dead, separates from the living part, combines with the remaining portion of inhaled oxygen, and is removed. Food, therefore, is necessary to compensate for the waste, to supply nourishment, and to restore strength to the nerves, on which all vital motion depends; for by the nerves volition acts on living matter. Food would not be sufficient to make up for this waste, and consequent loss of strength, without sleep; during which voluntary motion ceases, and the undisturbed assimilation of the food suffices to restore strength, and to make up for the involuntary motion of breathing, which is also a source of waste.

The perpetual combination of the oxygen of the atmosphere with the carbon of the food, and with the effete substance of the body, is a real combustion, and is supposed to be the cause of animal heat, because heat is constantly given out by the combination of carbon and oxygen; and, without a constant supply of food, the oxygen would soon consume the whole animal, except the bones.

Graminivorous animals inhale oxygen in breathing, and, as vegetable food does not contain so much carbon as animal food, they require a greater supply to compensate for the wasting influence of the oxygen; therefore, cattle are constantly eating. But the nutritious parts of vegetables are identical in composition with the chief constituents of the blood; and from blood every part of the animal body, and even a portion of the bones, is formed.

Carnivorous animals have not pores in the skin, therefore their supply of oxygen is from their breath only; and, as animal food contains a greater quantity of carbon, they do not require to eat so often as animals that feed on vegetables. The restlessness of carnivorous animals when confined in a cage is owing to the superabundance of carbon in their food. They move about continually to quicken respiration, and by that means procure a supply of oxygen to carry off the redundant carbon.

The quantity of animal heat is in proportion to the amount of the oxygen inspired in equal times. The heat of birds is greater than that of quadrupeds, and in both it is higher than the temperature of amphibious animals and fishes, which have the coldest blood. On these subjects we are indebted to Professor Liebig, who has thrown so much light on the important sciences of animal and vegetable chemistry.

The mammalia consist of nine orders of animals, which differ in appearance and in their nature; but they agree in the one attribute of suckling their young. These orders are—the Quadrumana, animals which can use their fore feet as hands, as monkeys and Apes; Cheiroptera, animals with winged arms, as bats; Carnivora, that live on animal food, as the lion, tiger, bear, &c.; Rodentia, or gnawers, as beavers, squirrels, mice; Edentata or toothless animals [or more properly wanting certain teeth, as the canines or incisors], as anteaters and armadilloes; Pachydermata, or thick-skinned animals, as the elephant, the horse; Ruminantia, animals that chew the cud, as camels, lamas, giraffes, cows, sheep, deer; Marsupialia, possessing a pouch in which the young is received after birth; and CetaceÆ, as whales and dolphins.

The animal creation, like the vegetable, varies correspondingly with height and latitude; the changes of species in ascending the Himalaya, for instance, are similar to what a traveller would meet with in his journey from a southern to a high northern latitude. The number of land animals increases from the frigid zones to the equator, but the law is reversed with regard to the marine mammalia, which abound most in high latitudes. Taking a broad view of the distribution of the nine orders of mammalia, it may be observed that the tropical forests are the chief abode of the monkey tribe: Asia is the home of the ape, especially the islands of the Indian Archipelago, as far as the most easterly meridian of Timor, beyond which there are none.

They abound throughout Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Gibraltar, where the Barbary ape or magot is found: another species of magot inhabits the island of Niphon, the northern limit of monkeys at the eastern extremity of the continent.

The bats that live on fruits are chiefly met with in tropical and warm climates, especially in the Indian Archipelago; the common bats, which live on insects, and are so numerous in species as to form more than a third of the whole family, are found everywhere except in arctic America. The Vampire is only met with in tropical America. Carnivorous mammalia are distributed all over the globe, though very unequally: in Australia there are only four species, two of which are bats; there are only 13 in South America, and 27 in the Oceanic region; while in the tropical regions of America there are 109, in Africa 130, and in Asia 166 species of carnivora; and so rapid is their increase towards the tropical regions, that there are nearly three times as many in the tropical as in the temperate zones.

With regard to the Gnawers or Rodents, species of the same group frequently have a wide range in the same, or nearly the same, parallels of latitude, but when they are inhabitants of high mountain-ridges they follow the direction of the chain, whatever that may be, and groups confined to high latitudes often appear again at great elevations in low latitudes. The Edentata are particularly characteristic of South America, where there are three times as many species as there are in Asia, Africa, and Australia, taken together. In the three latter countries they only occur at intervals, but in America they extend from the tropic of Cancer to the plains of Patagonia. Thick-skinned and ruminating animals are very abundant in the old continent, especially in Asia and Africa; they are also in North America, but in the southern part of that continent there is only the Tapir, and in Australia there are none. The marsupialia are confined to Australia and America.

The distribution of animals is guided by laws analogous to those which regulate the distribution of plants, insects, fishes, and birds. Each continent, and even different parts of the same continent, are centres of zoological families, which have always existed there, and nowhere else; each group being almost always specifically different from all others.

Food, security, and temperature have no influence, as primary causes, in the distribution of animals. The plains of America are not less fit for rearing oxen than the meadows of Europe; yet the common ox was not found in that continent at the time of its discovery; and with regard to temperature, this animal thrives on the llanos of Venezuela and the pampas of Brazil as well as on the steppes in Europe. The horse is another example: originally a native of the deserts of Tartary, he now roams wild in herds of hundreds of thousands on the grassy plains of America, though unknown in that continent at the time of the Spanish invasion. All animals, however, are not so flexible in their constitutions, for most of them would perish from change of climate. The stations which the different families now occupy must have been allotted to them as each part of the land rose above the ocean; and because they have found in these stations all that was necessary for their existence, many have never wandered from them, notwithstanding their powers of locomotion; while others have migrated, but only within certain bounds.

Instinct leads animals to migrate when they become too numerous; the rat in Kamtchatka, according to Pennant, sets out in spring in great multitudes, and travels 800 miles, swimming over rivers and lakes; and the Lapland marmot or lemming, native in the mountains of Kolen, migrates in bands, once or twice in 25 years, to the Western Ocean, which they enter and are drowned; other bands go through Swedish Lapland and perish in the Gulf of Bothnia. Thus, nature provides a remedy against the over increase of any one species, and maintains the balance of the whole. A temporary migration for food is not uncommon in animals. The wild ass, a native of the deserts of Great Tartary, in summer feeds to the east and north of the lake of Aral, and in autumn they migrate in thousands to the north of India, and even to Persia.^[183] The ruminating animals that dwell in the inaccessible parts of the Himalaya descend to their lower declivities in search of food in winter; and for the same reason the reindeer and musk-ox leave the Arctic snows.

The Arctic regions form a district common to Europe, Asia, and America. On this account, the animals inhabiting the northern parts of these continents are sometimes identical, often very similar; in fact, there is no genus of quadrupeds in the Arctic regions that is not found in the three continents, though there are only 27 species common to all, and these are mostly fur-bearing animals. In the temperate zone of Europe and Asia, which forms an uninterrupted region, identity of species is occasionally met with, but, for the most part, marked by such varieties in size and colour as might be expected to arise from difference of food and climate. The same genera are sometimes found in the intertropical parts of Asia, Africa, and America, but the same species never; much less in the south temperate zones of these continents, where all the animals are different, whether birds, beasts, insects, or reptiles; but in similar climates analogous tribes replace one another.

Europe has no family and no order peculiarly its own, and many of its species are common to other countries; consequently the great zoological districts, where the subject is viewed on a broad scale, are Asia, Africa, Oceanica, America, and Australia; but in each of these there are smaller districts, to which particular genera and families are confined. Yet when the regions are not separated by lofty mountain-chains, acting as barriers, the races are in most cases blended together on the confines between the two districts, so that there is not a sudden change.

EUROPEAN QUADRUPEDS.

The character of the animals of temperate Europe has been more changed by the progress of civilization than that of any other quarter of the globe. Many of its original inhabitants have been extirpated, and new races introduced; but it seems always to have had various animals capable of being domesticated. The wild cattle in the parks of the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Tankerville are the only remnants of the ancient inhabitants of the British forests, though they were spread over Europe, and perhaps were the parent stock from which the European cattle of the present time have descended; though the Aurochs, a race nearly extinct, and found only in the forests of Lithuania and the Caucasus, may have some claim to the pedigree. Both races are supposed to have come from Asia. The Mouflon, which exists in Corsica and Sardinia, is said to be the parent stock of our domestic sheep. The pig, the goat, the fallow-deer, and red-deer, have been reclaimed, and also the reindeer, which cannot strictly be called European, since it also inhabits the northern regions of Asia and America. The cat is European; and, altogether, eight or ten species of tamed quadrupeds have sprung from native animals.

There are still about 180 wild land-animals in Europe: 45 of these are also found in western Asia, and nine in northern Africa. The most remarkable are the reindeer, elk, red and fallow deer, the roe-buck, glutton, lynx, polecat, several wild-cats, the common and black squirrels, the fox, wild boar, wolf, the black and the brown bear, eight species of weasels, and seven of mice. The otter is common; but the beaver is now found only on the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, and some other large rivers; rabbits and hares are numerous; the hedgehog is everywhere; the porcupine in southern Europe only; the chamois and ibex in the Alps and Pyrenees. Many species of these animals are widely distributed over Europe, generally with variations in size and colour. The chamois of the Alps and Pyrenees, though the same in species, is slightly varied in appearance; and the fox of the most northern parts of Europe is larger than that in Italy, with a richer fur, and somewhat different colour.

Some animals never descend below a certain height, as the ibex and chamois, which live on higher ground than any of their order, being usually found between the region of trees and the line of perpetual snow, which is about 8900 feet on the southern, and 8200 on the northern declivities of the Alps. The common stag does not go above 7000 feet, and the fallow-deer not more than 6000, above the level of the sea: these two, however, descend to the plains, the former never do. The bear, lynx, and the stoat ascend nearly to the limit of perpetual snow.

Some European animals are much circumscribed in their locality. The ichneumon is peculiar to Egypt; the mouflon is confined to Corsica and Sardinia; there are a weasel and bat which inhabit Sardinia only; and Sicily has several peculiar species of bats and mice. There is only one species of monkey in Europe, which lives on the rock of Gibraltar, and is supposed to have been brought from Africa. All the indigenous British quadrupeds now existing, together with the hyÆna, tiger, bear, and wolf, whose bones have been found in caverns, are also found in the same state in Germany. Ireland was separated by the Irish Channel before all the animals had migrated across England; so that our squirrel, mole, polecat, dormouse, and many smaller quadrupeds, never reached the sister island. Mr. Owen has shown that the British horse, ass, hog, the smaller wild ox, the goat, roe, beaver, and many small rodents, are the same species with those which had co-existed with the mammoth, the great northern hippopotamus, and two kinds of rhinoceros long extinct. So that a part only of the modern tertiary fauna has perished, from whence he infers that the cause of their destruction was not a violent universal catastrophe from which none could escape. The Bos longifrons was co-existent with man.

ASIATIC QUADRUPEDS.

Asia has a greater number and a greater variety of wild animals than any country, except America, and also a larger proportion of those that are domesticated. Though civilized from the earliest ages, the destruction of the animal creation has not been so great as in Europe, owing to the inaccessible height of the mountains, the extent of the plains and desert, and, not least, to the impenetrable forests and jungles, which afford them a safe retreat: 288 mammalia are Asiatic, of which 188 are common to it and other countries; these, however, chiefly belong to the temperate zone.

Asia Minor is a district of transition from the fauna of Europe to that of Asia. There the chamois, the bouquetin, the brown bear, the wolf, fox, hare, and others, are mingled with the hyÆna, the Angora goat, which bears a valuable fleece, the Argali or wild sheep, the white squirrel; and even the Bengal royal tiger is sometimes seen on Mount Ararat, and is not uncommon in Azerbijan and the mountains in Persia.

Arabia is inhabited by the hyÆna, panther, jackal, wolf, and musk-deer. Antelopes and monkeys are found in Yemen and Aden. Most of these are also indigenous in Persia. The wild ass, Onagra, a handsome spirited animal of great speed, and so shy that it is scarcely possible to come near it, wanders in herds over the plains and table-lands of central Asia. It is also found in the Indian desert, and especially in the Run of Cutch—“the wilderness and the barren lands are his dwelling”—and in the most elevated regions of Tartary and Tibet, on the shores of the sacred lakes of Manasarowar and Rakastal, at a height of more than 15,250 feet above the sea.^[184]

The table-lands and mountains which divide eastern Asia almost into polar and tropical zones, produce as great a distinction in the character of its indigenous fauna. The severity of the climate in Siberia renders the skins of its numerous fur-bearing animals more valuable. These are reindeer, elks, wolves, the large white bear, that lives among the ice on the Arctic shores, several other bears, the lynx, various kinds of martens and cats, the common, the blue, and the black fox, the ermine, and sable. The fur of these last is much esteemed, and is only equalled by that of the sea-otter, which inhabits the shores on both sides of the northern Pacific.

With the exception of the Jerboa, which burrows in sandy deserts, on the table-land and elsewhere, all the Asiatic species of gnawers are confined to Siberia. The most remarkable of these is the flying squirrel. The AltaÏ Mountains teem with wild animals, besides many of those mentioned. There are large stags, bears, some peculiar weasels, the argali, and the wild sheep. The wild goat of the Alps is found in the Sayansk part of the chain; the glutton and musk-deer in the Baikal; and in Da-Ouria the red-deer and the Antelope Saiga. The Bengal tiger and the Felis Irbis, a species of panther, wander from the Celestial Mountains to the AltaÏ chain and southern Siberia: the Tiger is met with even on the banks of the Obi, and also in China, though in the northern regions it differs considerably from the same species in Bengal; thus it can bear a mean annual temperature of from 81° of Fahrenheit to the freezing point. The Tapir, and many of the animals of the Indian Archipelago, are found in the southern provinces of the Chinese empire; but its fauna is little known. It is, however, probable that in the northern parts it resembles that of the AltaÏ mountains and Siberia. The animals of Japan have a strong analogy to those of Europe: many are identical, or slightly varied, as the badger, otter, mole, common fox, marten, and squirrel. On the other hand, a large species of bear in the island of Jezo resembles the grizzly bear in the Rocky Mountains of North America. A chamois in other parts of Japan is similar to the Antelope montana of the same mountains: and other animals native in Japan are the same with those in Sumatra; so that its fauna is connected with that of very distant regions.

A few animals are peculiar to the high cold plains of the table-land of eastern Asia: the dziggetai, a very fleet animal, resembling both the horse and the ass, is peculiar to these Tartarian steppes; it is probably the same species as the Kiang of Tibet, which inhabits at very great heights, and has been seen on the banks of the sacred lake of Manasarowar, at an elevation of 15,250 feet, by Lieutenant Strachey: two species of antelopes inhabit the plains of Tibet, congregating in immense herds, with sentinels so vigilant that it is scarcely possible to approach them.

The Dzeran, or yellow goat, which is both swift and shy, and the handsome Tartar ox, are native in these wilds; also the shawl-wool goat and the manul, from which the Angora cat, so much admired in Persia and Europe, is descended. Most of the animals that live at such heights cannot exist in less elevated and warmer regions, exhibiting a striking instance of the limited distribution of species. Goats and sheep best endure the thin air and great cold of high lands: the Cashmere goat and Argoli sheep browse on the plains of Tibet at elevations of from 10,000 to 13,000 feet; the rass, a sheep with straight spiral horns, lives on the table-lands of Pamer, which are 15,000 feet above the sea; and also the kutch-gar, a species of sheep which is about the height of a year-old colt, with fine-curling horns: they congregate in flocks of many hundreds, and are hunted by the Kirghis.

The ruminating animals of Asia are more numerous and excellent than those of any other part of the world; 64 species are native, and 46 of these exist there only. There are several species of wild oxen; one in the Birmese empire, and on the mountains of north-eastern India, with spiral twisted horns. The buffalo is native in China, India, Borneo, and the Sunda Islands; it is a large animal, formidable in a wild state, but domesticated universally in the East. It was introduced into Italy in the sixth century, and large herds now graze in the low marshy plains near the sea.

Various kinds of oxen have been domesticated in India time immemorial: the handsome Indian ox, with a hump on the shoulder, has been venerated by the Brahmins for ages; the beautiful white silky tail of the domesticated ox of Tartary, used in the East to drive away flies, was adopted as the Turkish standard; and the common Indian ox differs from all others in the great speed of its course. Some other species of cattle have been tamed, and some are still wild in India, Java, and other Asiatic islands. The Cashmere goat, which bears the shawl-wool, is the most valuable of the endless varieties of goats and sheep of Asia; it is kept in large herds in the great valleys on the northern and southern declivities of the Himalaya, and in the upper regions of Bhotan, where the cold climate is congenial to it.

The Bactrian camel, with two humps, is strong, rough, and hairy, and is said to occur in a wild state in the desert of Shamo: it is the camel of central Asia, north of the Himalaya and Taurus, also of the Crimea and the countries round the Caucasus. The common or Arabian camel with one hump is a native of Asia, though only known now in a domesticated state; it has been introduced into Africa, Italy, the Canary islands, and even into the elevated regions of the Peru-Bolivian Andes. The best come from the province of Nejed in Arabia, which, on that account, is called the “mother of camels.” The camel of Oman is remarkable for beauty and swiftness.

Ten species of antelopes and twenty of deer are peculiar to Asia: two species of antelopes have already been mentioned as peculiar to the table-lands, the others are distributed in the Asiatic archipelago. The genuine musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus) inhabits the mountainous countries of central and south-eastern Asia, between China and Tartary, the regions round Lake Baikal, the AltaÏ mountains, Nepaul, Bhotan, Tibet, and the adjacent countries of China and Tonquin.

Asia possesses about ten native species of Pachydermata, including the elephant, horse, ass, which have been domesticated from the time of the earliest scriptural records. The horse is supposed to have existed wild in the plains of central Asia, as the dromedary in Arabia; though now they are only known as domestic animals. The Arabian and Persian horses have acknowledged excellence and beauty, and from these our best European horses are descended; the African horse, which was introduced into Spain by the Moors, is probably of the same race.

The elephant has long been a domestic animal in Asia, though it still roams wild in formidable herds through the forests and jungles at the foot of the Himalaya, in other parts of India, the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and the islands of Sumatra and Ceylon; the hunting elephant is esteemed the most noble. A one-horned rhinoceros is a native of continental Asia.

There are 60 genera of Asiatic carnivorous animals, of which the royal tiger is the handsomest and the most formidable: its favourite habitation is in the jungles of Hindostan, though it wanders nearly to the limit of perpetual snow in the Himalaya, to the Persian and Armenian mountains, to Siberia and China. Leopards and panthers are common, and there is a maneless lion in Guzerat: the Chitta, used in hunting, is the only one of the panthers capable of being tamed. The hyÆna is found everywhere, excepting the Birman empire, in which there are neither wolves, hyÆnas, foxes, nor jackals. There are four species of bears in India; that of Nepaul has valuable fur: the wild boar, hog, and dogs of endless variety, abound.

The Edentata have only two representatives in India, both manis or pangolins; which differ from all others except the African, in being covered with imbricated scales. Of these the short-tailed pangolin, or scaly anteater, is found throughout the Deccan, Bengal, Nepaul, the southern provinces of China, and Formosa.

The Indian Archipelago and the Indo-Chinese peninsula form a zoological province of a very peculiar nature, being allied to the faunas of India, Australia, and South America, yet having animals exclusively its own. The royal tiger is in great abundance in the Malay peninsula, and also the black variety of the panther, leopard, wild cats, multitudes of elephants, the rhinoceros of all three species, the Malayan tapir, many deer, the Babiroussa hog, and another species of that genus. Some groups of the islands have several animals in common, either identical or with slight variations, that are altogether wanting in other islands, which, in their turn, have creatures of their own. Many species are common to the archipelago and the neighbouring parts of the continent, or even to China, Bengal, Hindostan, and Ceylon. Flying quadrupeds are a distinguishing feature of this archipelago, though some do not absolutely fly, but, by an extension of the skin of their sides to their legs, which serves as a parachute, they take long leaps. Nocturnal flying squirrels, of several species, are common to the Malayan peninsula and the Sunda Islands, especially Java; and three species of flying Lemurs inhabit Sunda, Malacca, and the Pelew Islands. Besides these, there are the frugivorous bats, which really fly, differing from bats in other countries by living exclusively upon vegetable food. The edible roussette, or kalong, one of the largest known, appears in flocks of hundreds, and even thousands, in Java, Sumatra, and Banda: the Pteropus funereus, another of these large bats, assembles in as great numbers.

A hundred and eighty species of the ape and monkey tribe are entirely Asiatic: monkeys are found only on the coast of India, Cochin-China, and the Sunda Islands; the long-armed apes or gibbons are in the Sunda Islands and the Malayan peninsula. The Simayang, a very large ape of Sumatra and Bencoolen, goes in large troops, following a leader, and makes a howling noise at sunrise and sunset that is heard miles off. Sumatra and Borneo are the peculiar abode of the Orang-outang, which, in the Malay language, means the “man of woods,” which, except perhaps the Chimpanzee of Africa, approaches nearest to man. It has never spread over the islands it inhabits, though there seems to be nothing to prevent it, but it finds all that is necessary within a limited district. The orang-outang and the long-armed apes have extraordinary muscular strength, and swing from tree to tree by their arms.

The Malays have given the name of orang, or man, to the whole tribe, on account of their intelligence as well as their form.

A two-horned rhinoceros is peculiar to Java, of a different species from the African, also the Felis macrocelis, and a very large bear; there are only two species of squirrels in Java, which is remarkable, as the Sunda Islands are rich in them. The royal tiger of India and the elephant are found only in Sumatra, and the babiroussa lives in Borneo; but these two islands have many quadrupeds in common, as a leopard, the one-horned rhinoceros, the black antelope, some graceful miniature creatures of the deer kind, the Tapir, also found in Malacca, besides a wild boar, an inhabitant of all the marshy forest from Borneo to New Guinea. In the larger islands deer abound, some as large as the elk, probably the Hippelaphus of Aristotle.

The Anoa, a ruminating animal about the size of a sheep, a species of antelope, shy and savage, goes in herds in the mountains of Celebes, where many forms of animals strangers to the Sunda Islands begin to appear, as some sorts of phalangers, or pouched quadrupeds. These new forms become more numerous in the Moluccas, which are inhabited by flying phalangers and other pouched animals, with scaly tails. The phalangers are nocturnal, and live on trees. In New Guinea there are kangaroos, the spotted phalanger, the pelandoe, the New Guinea hog, and the Papua dog, said to be the origin of all the native dogs in Australia and Oceanica, wild or tame.

The fauna of the Philippine Islands is analogous to that in the Sunda Islands. They have several quadrupeds in common with India and Ceylon, but there are others which probably are not found in these localities.

AFRICAN QUADRUPEDS.

The opposite extremes of aridity and moisture in the African continent have had great influence in the nature and distribution of its animals; and since by far the greater part consists of plains utterly barren or covered by temporary verdure, and watered by inconstant streams that flow only a few months in the year, fleet animals, fitted to live on arid plains, are far more abundant than those that require rich vegetation and much water. The latter are chiefly confined to the intertropical coasts, and especially to the large jungles and deep forests at the northern declivity of the table-land, where several genera and many species exist that are not found elsewhere. Africa has a fauna in many respects insulated from that of every other part of the globe; for although about 100 of its quadrupeds are common to other countries, there are 250 species its own. Several of these animals, especially the larger kinds, are distributed over the whole table-land from the Cape of Good Hope to the highlands of Abyssinia and Senegambia without the smallest variety, and many are slightly modified in colour and size. Ruminating animals are very numerous, though few have been domesticated: of these, the ox of Abyssinia and Bornou is remarkable from the extraordinary size of its horns, which are sometimes 2 feet in circumference at the root; and the Galla ox of Abyssinia has horns 4 feet long. There are many African varieties of buffalo; that at the Cape of Good Hope is a large, fierce animal, wandering in herds in every part of the country, even to Abyssinia: the flesh of the whole race is tainted with the odour of musk. The African sheep and goats, of which there are many varieties, differ from those of other countries; the wool of all is coarse, except that of the Merino sheep, said to have been introduced into Spain by the Moors from Morocco.

No country has produced a ruminating animal similar, or even analogous, to the Giraffe, or Camelopard, which ranges widely over south Africa from the northern banks of the Gareep, or Orange river, to the Great Desert; it is also found in Dongola and in Abyssinia. It is a gentle, timid animal, which has been seen in troops of 100. The earliest record we have of it is in the sculptured monuments of the ancient Egyptians, and it is well known that it was brought to Rome to grace the triumph of a victorious emperor.

Africa may truly be said to be the land of the genus Antelope, which is found in every part of it, where it represents the deer of Europe, Asia, and America. Different species have their peculiar localities, while others are widely dispersed, sometimes with and sometimes without any sensible variety of size or colour. The greater number are inhabitants of the plains, while a few penetrate into the forests. Sixty species have been described, of which at least 26 are found north of the Cape of Good Hope and in the adjacent countries. They are of every size, from the pigmy antelope not larger than a hare, to the Caama, which is as large as an ox. Timidity is the universal character of the race. Most species are gregarious; and the number in a herd is far too great even to guess at. Like all animals that feed in groups, they have sentinels; and they are the easy prey of so many carnivorous animals, that their safety requires the precaution. At the head of their enemies is the lion, who lurks among the tall reeds at the fountain to seize them when they come to drink. They are graceful in their motions, especially the spring-buck, which goes in a compact troop; and in their march there is constantly one which gathers its slender limbs together and bounds into the air.

Africa has only two species of deer, both belonging to the Atlas: one is the common fallow-deer of Europe.

The 38 species of rodentia, or gnawing quadrupeds, of this continent, live on the plains; and many of them are leaping animals, as the Jerboa capensis. Squirrels are comparatively rare.

There are some species of the horse peculiar to south Africa; of these the gaily-striped Zebra and the more sober-coloured Quagga wander in troops over the plains, often in company with ostriches. An alliance between creatures differing in nature and habits is not easily accounted for. The two-horned rhinoceros of Africa is different from that of Asia: there are certainly three, and probably five, species of these huge animals peculiar to the table-land. Dr. Smith saw 150 in one day near the 24th parallel of south latitude. The hippopotamus is exclusively African: multitudes inhabit the lakes and rivers in the intertropical and southern parts of the continent; those that inhabit the Nile and Senegal appear to form different species. An elephant, differing in species from that of Asia, is so numerous, that 200 have been seen in a herd near Lake Tchad. They are not domesticated in Africa, and are hunted by the natives for their tusks. The Phacochoere, or Ethiopian hog, and a species of Hyrax, are among the Pachydermata of this country. The monkey tribe is found in all the hot parts of Africa: peculiar genera are allotted to particular districts. Except a few in Asia, the family of guenons is found in no part of the world but the Cape of Good Hope, the coasts of Loango and Guinea, where they swarm.

The species are numerous, and vary much in size and colours: the cynocephalus, or blue-headed baboon, with a face like that of a dog, is large, ferocious, and dangerous. One species of these baboons inhabits Guinea, others the southern parts of the table-land, and one is met with everywhere from Sennaar to Cafraria. A remarkable long-eared kind is found in Abyssinia; the mandrills, which belong to the same genus, are confined to central Africa. The magot or Barbary ape is in north Africa; and the only macac in this continent inhabits the mountains in the high country of southern Abyssinia, 8000 feet above the level of the sea. The African species of thumbless apes are met with in the tropical countries on the west coast, where the Colobus comosus, or king of the monkeys, also lives, so called by the natives from its beautiful fur and singular head of hair; another of these is peculiar to the low lands of Gojam, Kulla, and Damot. The Chimpanzee, which so nearly approaches the human form, inhabits the forests of south Africa from Cape Negro to the Gambia. Living in society like all apes and monkeys, which are eminently sociable, it is very intelligent and easily tamed. A new species of African Chimpanzee, equalling in size the Orang-outang, has been recently described by Professor Owen: it is probably the largest of the quadrumana, and by all accounts the most dangerous and ferocious.

Baron Humboldt observes that all apes resembling man have an expression of sadness; that their gaiety diminishes as their intelligence increases.

Africa possesses the cat tribe in great variety and beauty; lions, leopards, and panthers are numerous throughout the continent; servals and viverrine cats are in the torrid districts; and the lion of the Atlas is said to be the most formidable of all. In no country are foxes so abundant. Various species inhabit Nubia, Abyssinia, and the Cape of Good Hope. The corsac is peculiar to the Cape. The long-eared fox, the famel of Kordofan, and some others, are found in Africa only. There are also various species of dogs, the hyÆna, and the jackal. The hyÆnas hunt in packs, attack the lion and panther, and easily destroy them.

Two species of Edentata are African—the long-tailed manis, and the Aard-vark, or earth-hog: the first is covered with scales, the latter with coarse long hair; they burrow in the ground and feed on ants. Great flocks of a large migratory vampire-bat frequent the Slave-coast. Altogether there are 26 species of African bats.

Multitudes of antelopes of various species, lions, leopards, panthers, hyÆnas, jackals, and some other carnivora, live in the oases of the great northern deserts; jerboas, and endless species of leaping gnawers, rats, and mice burrow in the ground. The dryness of the climate and soil keeps the coats of the animals clean and glossy; and it has been observed that tawny and grey tints are the prevailing colours in the fauna of the north African deserts, not only in the birds and beasts, but in reptiles and insects. In consequence of the continuous desert extending from North Africa through Arabia to Persia and India, many analogous species of animals exist in those countries: in some instances they are the same, or varieties of the same, species, as the ass, the dziggeti, antelopes, leopards, panthers, jackals, and hyÆnas.

The fauna on the eastern side of the great island of Madagascar is analogous to that of India; on the western side it resembles that of Africa, though, as far as it is known, it seems to be a distinct centre of animal life. It has no ruminating animals; and the monkey tribe is represented by the Lemures and the Galagos, which are characteristic of this fauna. A frugivorous bat, the size of a common fowl, forms an article of food.

AMERICAN QUADRUPEDS.

No species of animal has yet been extirpated in America, which is the richest zoological province, possessing 537 species of mammalia, of which 480 are its own; yet no country has contributed so little to the stock of domestic animals. With the exception of the Llama and Alpaca, and the turkey, and perhaps some sheep and dogs, America has furnished no animal or bird serviceable to man, while it has received from Europe all its domestic animals and its civilized inhabitants.

Arctic America possesses most of the valuable fur-bearing animals that are in Siberia; and they were very plentiful till the unsparing destruction of them has driven those yet remaining to the high latitudes, where the hunters that follow them are exposed to great hardships. Nearly 6,000,000 of skins were brought to England in one year, most of which were taken in the forest regions; the barren grounds are inhabited by the Arctic fox, the polar hare, by the brown and the white bear, a formidable animal which often lives on the ice itself. The reindeer lives on the lichens and mosses of these barren grounds, and wanders to the shores of the Polar Ocean: its southern limit in Europe is the Baltic Sea, in America it is the latitude of Quebec. Some of the fur-bearing quadrupeds of these deserts never pass the 65th degree of N. lat.; the greater number live in the northern forests, as the black bear, racoon, badger, the ermine, and four or five other members of the weasel tribe, the red fox, the polar and brown lynxes, the beaver, the musquash or musk-rat, of which half a million are killed annually, and the moose-deer, whose northern range ends where the aspen and willows cease to grow. The grizzly bear, the largest and most ferocious of its kind, inhabits the range of the Rocky Mountains to Mexico, as well as the western savannahs. The prairie-wolf, the grey fox, the Virginian hare, live in the prairies; the Wapiti, a large stag, inhabits those on both sides of the Rocky Mountains; and the Prongbuck, an antelope fleeter than a horse, roams throughout the western part of the continent, and migrates to California and Mexico in winter. The musk-ox and shaggy bison are peculiar to North America. The musk-ox travels to Parry’s Islands in the Arctic regions, yet it never has been seen in Greenland or on the north-western side of the continent. The shaggy bison goes south to the Arkansas, roams in herds of thousands over the prairies of the Mississippi and on both sides of the Rocky Mountains. It never wanders farther north than the 30th parallel, the southern limit of the musk-ox. A marmot known as the prairie-dog is universal.

There are at least eight varieties of American dogs, several of which are natives of the far north. The lagopus, or isatis, native in Spitzbergen and Greenland, is found in all the Arctic regions of America and Asia and in some of the Kurile Islands. Dogs are employed to draw sledges in Newfoundland and Canada; and the Esquimaux travel drawn by dogs as well as by reindeer. The dogs are strong and docile. The Esquimaux dogs were mute till they learned to bark from dogs in our discovery ships.

There are 13 species of the ruminating genus in North America, including the bison, the musk-ox of the Arctic regions, the big-horned sheep, and the goat of the Rocky Mountains. The horse, now roaming wild in innumerable herds over the plains of South America, was unknown there till the Spanish conquest. The quadrupeds of the temperate zone are distributed in distinct groups: those of the state of New York, consisting of about 40 species, are different from those of the Arctic regions, and also from those of South Carolina and Georgia; while in Texas another assemblage of species prevails. The Racoon, the Coatimondi, and the Kinkajou are all natives of the southern States.

There are 118 species of rodentia or gnawing animals in North America, rats, mice, squirrels, beavers, &c., many of which, especially in the north, appear to be identical with those in the high latitudes of Europe and Asia. The genera of very different latitudes are often representative but never identical. Squirrels abound in North America; the grey squirrel is found in thousands.

There are 21 species of Opossum in this continent, a family of the pouched animals which are so peculiarly characteristic of Australia. Of these, the Virginian opossum inhabits the whole extent of the American continent between the great Canadian lakes and Paraguay, and also the West Indian islands, where it is called the manitu; and two other animals of that order live in Mexico. There is a porcupine in the United States and Canadian forests which climbs trees. The bats are different from those in Europe, and, excepting two, are very local. In California there are ounces, polecats, the Berenda (an animal peculiar to that country), and a deer of remarkable size and speed.

The high land of Mexico forms a very decided line of division between the fauna of North and that of the South America; yet some North American animals are seen beyond it, particularly two of the bears, and one of the otters, which inhabits the continent from the icy ocean to beyond Brazil. On the other hand, the Puma, Jaguar, Opossum, Kinkajou, and Peccari, have crossed the barrier from South America to California and the United States.

In the varied and extensive regions of South America there are several centres of a peculiar fauna, according as the country is mountainous or level, covered with forest or grass, fertile or desert, but the mammalia are inferior in size to those of the old world. The largest, most powerful, and perfect animals of this class are confined to the old continent. The South American quadrupeds are on a smaller scale, more feeble and more gentle; many of them, as the toothless group and the sloths, are of anomalous and less perfect structure than the rest of the animal creation, but the fauna of South America is so local and so peculiar, that the species of five of the terrestrial orders, which are indigenous there, are found nowhere else.

The monkey tribe are in myriads in the forests of tropical America and Brazil, but they never go north of the Isthmus of Darien, nor farther south than the Rio de la Plata. They differ widely from those in the old world, bearing less resemblance to the human race, but they are more gentle and lively, and, notwithstanding their agility, are often a prey to the vulture and puma.

There are two great American families of four-handed animals—the sapajous with prehensile tails, by which they suspend themselves, and swing from bough to bough. Some of these inhabitants of the woods are very noisy, especially the Argualis, a large ape whose bawling is heard a mile off. The howlers are generally very large, and have a wider range than any of the genus; one species, the Mycetus rufimanus or beelzebub, ascends the Andes to the height of 11,000 feet. The cebus or weepers, which are frequently brought to Europe, belong also to this family; the genus has a greater number of species than any other in the New World, but a very narrow location; they are most abundant in Guiana.

The saquis or bushy-tailed monkeys form the other great American family. The fox-monkey sleeps during the day; it frequents the deepest forests from the Orinoco to Paraguay. Squirrel-monkeys inhabit the banks of the Orinoco, and the night-monkeys, with very large eyes, live in Guiana and Brazil. The marmosets are pretty little animals, easily tamed, especially the Midas leonina, not more than 7 or 8 inches long. Some American monkeys have no thumb, others have a versatile thumb on both their hands and feet. In the New World the monkey tribe inhabit the continent from Honduras to beyond Brazil, in thousands, yet each kind has its own peculiar location.

The forests are also inhabited by opossums, a family of the marsupial tribe, or animals with pouches, in which they carry their young; they are analogous to those which form the distinguishing feature of the Australian fauna, but of distinct genera and species. Few of these animals are larger than a rat, and they mostly live on trees, except one kind which is aquatic, found near the small streams from Honduras to Brazil. A species in Surinam carries its young upon its back; the elegant opossum is very numerous on the west side of the Andes, and there only. All the opossums and the yassacks of this country have thumbs on their hind feet, opposite to the toes, so that they can grasp; they are, moreover, distinguished from the Australian family by a long prehensile tail, and by greater agility. The numerous tribe of sapajou monkeys, the ant-eaters, the kinkajou, and a species of porcupine, have also grasping tails, a property of many South American animals.

Five genera and 20 species of the Edentata are characteristic of this continent, and exclusively confined to South America: they are the sloths of two kinds, the ai and unau; the Armadilloes, Chlamyphores, and Anteaters. The animals of these five genera have very different habits: the sloths, as their name implies, are the most inactive of animals; they inhabit the forests from the southern limit of Mexico to Rio de Janeiro, and to the height of 3000 feet on the Andes in the region of palms and scitamineÆ. Of these, the common sloth or Ai ranges from Honduras to Brazil; while the Unau, the larger of the two, is confined to Guiana. The Armadillo, in its coat of mail, is in perpetual motion, and can outrun a man in speed. They live on all the plains and table-lands of South America even to Paraguay. The one-banded armadillo rolls itself up like a ball; the nine-banded species is eaten by the natives; the giant armadillo, 3 feet long, inhabits the forests only. Most species of these animals are nocturnal, and burrow in the earth in the Pampas. The chlamyphores are also burrowing animals, peculiar to the province of Cuyo on the eastern slope of the Chilian Andes; they have the faculty of sitting upright. The ant-eater, larger than a Newfoundland dog, with shorter legs, defends itself against the jaguar with its power claws; it inhabits the swampy savannahs and damp forests from Columbia to Paraguay, and from the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes; its flesh, like that of some other American animals, has a flavour of musk. The little ant-eater has a prehensile tail, and lives on trees in the tropical forests, feeding on the larvÆ of bees, wasps, honey, and ants; another of similar habits lives in Brazil and Guiana. The cat tribe in South America is beautiful and powerful: the Puma, the lion of America, is found both in the mountains and the plains, in great numbers; so different are its habits in different places, that in Chile it is timid and flies from a dog; in Peru it is bold, though it rarely attacks a man. The Jaguar, which inhabits the lower forests, is very abundant, and so ferocious that it has been known to spring upon Indians in a canoe; hunting as it sometimes does in troops, it has been known to destroy the inhabitants of entire Indian villages; it is one of the few South American animals that cross the Isthmus of Darien, being found in California, on the territory of the Mississippi, and has been seen in Canada.

The vampire is a very large bat, much dreaded by the natives, because it enters their huts at night, and, though it seldom attacks human beings, it wounds calves and small animals, which sometimes die from the loss of blood. The other three South American bats are harmless.

The only ruminating animals that existed in South America prior to the Conquest were the four species of the genus Auchenia—the Llama, the Alpaca, the VicuÑa, and the GuanÁco: the three first are exclusively confined to the colder and more elevated regions of the Peruvian Andes; the last has a wider geographical range, extending to the plains of Patagonia, and even to the southernmost extremity of the continent. The Llama inhabits the high valleys of the Peru-Bolivian Andes, its favourite region being in the valley of the lake of Titicaca: it was the only beast of burthen possessed by the aborigines; hence, we find it wherever the Incas carried their conquests and civilization, from the equator to beyond the southern tropic. It is still extensively employed by the Indian as a beast of burthen, and its wool, though coarse, is used by the aborigines: like all domestic animals, it varies in colour; its flesh is nauseous, black, and ill tasted.

The Alpaca, or paco, a gentle and handsome animal, although more closely allied to the llama than any of its congeners, is a distinct species: it inhabits at still more elevated places than the llama, its favourite haunts being on the streams descending from the snowy peaks: it is only found in a domestic state; it is reared for its wool, which is extremely fine, silky, and long, and which now bears a high price, from its introduction into some of our finest woollen tissues. The vicuÑa is only found in the wild state, in the plains on the Andes, as high as 1500 feet: its wool is much prized for its fineness. The animal has a shrill whistle; it is easily domesticated. The GuanÁco, by some naturalists considered erroneously as the parent stock of the llama and alpaca, is also only found in the wild state: it is seen as far north as lat. 12° S., is very abundant and in large flocks on the Bolivian and Chilian Andes, and has been seen as far as the southern extremity of the American continent. All these animals feed on a species of coarse wiry grass called ichu.^[185]

Several species of deer are found in the tropical regions of South America, and a remarkable species, with fragile hair like that of the roebuck, the cervus (Andium), as high as 11,000 feet in the Andes.

The rodentia, or gnawers, of South America, are very numerous; there are 92 in Brazil alone: there are only 8 species of squirrels and 64 species of rats and mice, some of which are very peculiar.

The agoutis represent our hares in the plains of Patagonia, in Paraguay, &c., and extend as far as Guiana. The family of the cavias, or guinea-pigs, are found in Brazil, and some species in the great table-lands of the Peru-Bolivian Andes; the Echymys, or spiny rat, is an inhabitant of the shores of the Rio de la Plata and Paraguay; the Vizcacha of the pampas, a burrowing animal, inhabits the great plain of Buenos Ayres; an animal bearing the same name is frequent in the rocky districts of the Andes, as high as 15,000 feet above the sea; and the beautiful Chinchilla, nearly allied to the latter, whose fur is so highly esteemed, inhabits the same regions at the same great elevations in the Andes of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile: the best fur of the chinchilla is collected in the Bolivia province of Potosi, and in the Chilian province of Copiabo. The largest of all the rodentia, the Cabiai (Myopotamus), inhabits the banks of the great rivers of tropical America, where its habits resemble, according to some travellers, those of the hippopotamus. The Paca, the next in size, is less aquatic in its habits, and lives in the dense forests of Brazil and Paraguay.

It is very remarkable that in a country which has the most luxuriant vegetation there should not be one species of hollow-horned ruminants, as the ox, sheep, goat, or antelope; and it is still more extraordinary that the existing animals of South America, which are so nearly allied to the extinct inhabitants of the same soil, should be so inferior in size not only to them, but even to the living quadrupeds of South Africa, which is comparatively a desert. The quantity of vegetation in Britain at any one time exceeds the quantity on an equal area in the interior of Africa ten-fold, yet Mr. Darwin has computed that the weight of 10 of the largest south African quadrupeds is 24 times greater than that of the same number of quadrupeds of South America; for in South America there is no animal the size of a cow, so that there is no relation between the bulk of the species and the vegetation of the countries they inhabit.

The largest animals indigenous in the West Indian islands are the Agouti, the Raccoon, the Houtias, a native of the forests of Cuba; the Didelphous carnivora and the Kinkajou are common also to the continent: the kinkajou is a solitary instance of a carnivorous animal with a prehensile tail.

AUSTRALIAN QUADRUPEDS.

Australia is not farther separated from the rest of the world by geographical position than by its productions. Its animals are creatures by themselves, of an entirely unusual type; few in species, and still fewer individually, if the vast extent of country be taken into consideration; and there has not been one large animal discovered. There are only 53 species of land quadrupeds in New Holland, and there is not a single example of the ruminating or pachydermatous animals, so useful to man, among them; there are no native horses, oxen, or sheep, yet all these thrive and multiply on the grassy steppes of the country, which seem to be so well suited to them. There are none of the monkey tribe; indeed they could not exist in a country where there is no fruit.

Of the species of indigenous quadrupeds, 40 are found nowhere else, and 138 are marsupial or pouched animals, distinguished from all others by their young being, as it were, prematurely born and nourished in the pouch till they are mature.^[186] Though all the members of this numerous family agree in this circumstance, they are dissimilar in appearance, internal structure, in their teeth and feet, consequently in their habits; two genera live on vegetable food, one set are gnawers and another toothless. The Kangaroo and the kangaroo-rat walk on their hind legs, and go by bounds, aided by their strong tail; the rat holds its food in its hands like the squirrel; the opossum walks on all fours; the phalangers live on trees, and swing by their bushy tail, some burrow in the sand; the flying opossum or Phalanger, peculiarly an Australian animal, lives on the leaves of the gum-tree; by expanding the skin of its sides it supports itself in the air in its leaps from bough to bough. Several of the genera come out at night only, a characteristic of many Australian animals.

The pouched tribe vary in size from that of a large dog to a mouse; the kangaroos, which are the largest, are easily domesticated, and are used for food by the natives. Some go in large herds in the mountains, others live in the plains; however, they have become scarce near the British colonies, and, with all other native animals, are likely to be extirpated. In Van Diemen’s Land they are less persecuted; several species exist there. The kangaroos, of which there are 40 species, are more widely dispersed than any of the marsupial animals of the old world. They exist not only in New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land, but also in New Guinea and Java. Some are limited within narrow bounds: the banded kangaroo, the handsomest of his tribe, is found only in the islands of Shark’s Bay, on the west coast of Australia. The Wombat is peculiar to Australia, the islands in Bass’s Strait, and Van Diemen’s Land; to which the two largest carnivorous marsupials peculiarly belong, called by the natives the tiger hyÆna, and the native devil; both are nocturnal, predatory, and ferocious. A wild dog in the woods, whose habits are ferocious, is, with the tiger hyÆna, the largest carnivorous animal in Australia.

The gnawing animals are aquatic and very peculiar, but the edentata of New Holland are quite anomalous; of these there are two genera, the Ornithorhynchus, or duck-billed mole, and the Echidna: they are the link that connects the edentata with the pouched tribe, and mammal with oviparous animals. The ornithorhynchus is about 14 inches long, and covered with thick brown fur; its head is similar to that of a quadruped, ending in a bill like that of a duck: it has short furry legs with half-webbed feet, and the hind feet are armed with sharp claws. It inhabits burrows on the banks of rivers, which have two entrances, one above, the other below the level of the water, which it seldom leaves, feeding on insects and seeds in the mud.

The echidna is similar in its general structure to the ornithorhynchus, but entirely different in external appearance, being covered with quills like the porcupine; it is also a burrowing animal, sleeps during winter, and lives on ants in summer.

A singular analogy exists between Australia and South America in this respect, that the living animals of the two countries are stamped with the type of their ancient geological inhabitants, while in England and elsewhere the difference between the existing and extinct generations of beings is most decided. Australia and South America seem still to retain some of those conditions that were peculiar to the most ancient eras. Thus, each tribe of the innumerable families that inhabit the earth, the air, and the waters, has a limited sphere. How wonderful the quantity of life that now is, and the myriads of beings that have appeared and vanished!^[187] Dust has returned to dust through a long succession of ages, and has been continually remoulded into new forms of existence—not an atom has been annihilated; the fate of the vital spark that has animated it, with a vividness sometimes approaching to reason, is one of the deep mysteries of Providence.