i6o /oitrnal of Travel and Natural History 



Of the lower animals, we have scarcely any mention of croco- 

 diles in the rivers — a python, and one or two other serpents in the 

 Lowlands, and a couple of lizards are almost all the other verte- 

 brata noticed. Of the molluscs he mentions Tridnacna squa- 

 mosa, as a shell found in the Red Sea (p. 70). The reader will 

 remember that the Tridacnas are those large trigonal bivalves 

 (some of them of enormous size) sometimes used as holy Avater 

 vessels in Roman Catholic churches, which are now chiefly con- 

 fined to the Australian seas, and of which fossil remains are abun- 

 dant in the Eocene formations, giving support to the theory that a 

 special similarity exists between the animals which lived at those 

 epochs and those which now inhabit Australia and the neighbour- 

 ing seas. He also speaks of the Alpine heights between Gondar 

 and Magdala being rich in small shells. They live under a 

 covering of mosses and lichens, under stones and rubbish, and in 

 the rind of thistle heads. In the Tana Sea occur species of Palu- 

 dina, Cyrene, and Unio, pecuhar to Abyssinia — all genera with a 

 very wide range of distribution, but having more relation with the 

 northern regions than the south (p. 290). 



As to plants, the proportion of African and European forms 

 specified by Von Heuglin are very nearly equal in number ; any 

 one reading the book, however, with the idea of tracing anything 

 like the successive preponderance of African forms, as the traveller 

 proceeded southwards, is apt to be misled if he does not pay atten- 

 tion to the heights of the district where the species have been 

 collected. The plants mentioned at first are much more frequently 

 African types than European (three to one we should say), but 

 further on in his journey, as he gets higher up, the more do the 

 European types (many of them our own familiar favourites, wild 

 roses, thyme, eyebright, &c.), prej^onderate until they quite 

 reverse the proportion. The most noteworthy point in its 

 botany is the very remarkable identity of its species, or generic 

 forms, with those found by Dr Welwitsch in the mountain region 

 of Angola. 



There are a number of forms peculiar to Abyssinia itself, the 

 most remarkable of which, perhaps, is the wonderful Jibara 

 (Rhynchopetalum montanum) the zone of which begins at 

 11,000 feet, and continues, so far as the soil extends, up to 

 the highest tops, at first mixed with Erica and Hypericum, then 

 standing in thousands on the short grass of the meadows, bloom- 

 ing amongst the numerous small alpine plants (p. 222), 



