BUFFONFULLER QUOTATIONS. 145 



a beast " of great ferocity, of terrible swiftness, and 

 surpassing even the proportions of the lion." The effect 

 of the description is that we no longer find the lion 

 standing alone, but with the tiger on a par with him if 

 not above him ; but at the same time we fall easy victims 

 to the temptation to confound the tiger with "the many 

 other animals which are also called tigers." A surface 

 stream has swept the members of the cat family in 

 different directions, but a stealthy undercurrent has 

 seized them from beneath, and they are now happily 

 reunited. 



Animals of the Old and New World Changed 

 Geographical Distribution. 



Writing upon the animals of the old world,* and 

 referring to the humps of the camel and the bison, 

 Buffon shows that very considerable modification may be 

 effected in some animals within even a few generations, 

 but he attributes the effect produced to the direct in- 

 fluence of climate. Buffon concludes his sketch of the 

 animals of the new world by pointing out that the 

 larger animals of the African torrid zone have been 

 hindered by sea and desert from finding their way to 

 America, and by claiming to be the first "even to 

 have suspected " that there was not a single denizen 

 of the torrid zone of one continent which was common 

 also to the other.t 



The animals common to both continents are those 

 which can stand the cold and which are generally suited 

 for a temperate climate. These, Buffon believes, to 

 * Tom. ix. p. 68, 1761. f Ibid, p. 96, 1761. 



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