DISTRIBUTION OF OrillDIANS. 213 



Mammals and of Reptiles, which, besides, arc more adapted 

 to furnish convincing proofs. Tlie Monitor exanthemati- 

 cus, and M. niloticus of Egypt and Senegal, are replaced 

 at the Cape by local varieties, with colours more deep, and 

 a pattern more marked ; they are then the Tupinambis 

 albogularis of Daudin, and the Lacerta capensis of Spar- 

 man.* The Vipera arietans of the Cape has paler tints 

 than that of Nubia or Abyssinia ; the same holds good 

 with the Toad of the Cape (Bufo pantherinus. Bote), which 

 there replaces the Bufo Arabicus of Egypt, with a less 

 agreeable system of colouring ; the Naja Haje of Egypt is 

 represented at the Cape by the Naja nivea ; and there is 

 found at the Cape a variety of the Agile Lizard (Lacerta 

 pardalis), which is a native of France and Spain. Certain 

 Tortoises afford extremely curious examples of the influ- 

 ence of climatef on animals, or of the diiferences which are 

 often presented, in different countries, by species which arc 

 modelled on a single type. The great Land Tortoise of 

 the Cape (Testudo pardalis, Bell) has also been brought 

 from Senegal and Abyssinia ; but, instead of having its 

 shield ornamented with a beautiful design in black and 

 yellow, this part is of an uniform yellowish-gi'cy, a tint 

 which pervades all the rest of the body ; in fine, all the 

 appendages of the skin have acquired, under the influence 

 of so genial a climate, a stronger development ; so that 

 the scales of the fore feet have all been transformed into 

 points or even into spines : this local variety is known un- 

 der the names of Testudo sulcata or T. calcarata. The 

 Testudo angulata of the Cape, which is also found at 

 Sierra Leone, has undergone, in the latter place, changes 

 analogous to those which I have mentioned as taking place 

 in the T. pardalis ; but, in the Tortoise, of which we now 

 speak, this influence of a different climate is especially ex- 



* See the review of the genus Monitor in the third number of my 

 Ahhildungen, where I have corrected the errors committed by naturalists 

 in determining the species of this genus. 



t I trust that no one will compare my mode of considering the ex- 

 pressions, race, local variety, or what depends on climate, with the ideas 

 of BuFFOX, who would willingly unite into one species all the hares in 

 the world ; or still less those of Lamarck, who attempts to prove the 

 possibility of transmutation of the orang-outan into the human species. 



