AFRICA AND ITS ANIMALS 137 



for example, the creatures inhabiting the open districts of 

 the Punjab and the North-West Provinces display re- 

 markable differences from those dwelling in the forests of 

 Southern India (the home of the strange loris) ; while the 

 dwellers in the jungly tract of the south-western districts 

 of Bengal are equally distinct from those of either of the 

 other areas. 



Seeing, then, that while slight differences are observable 

 in the local faunas of such a small area as the British 

 Islands, and that much more important ones characterise 

 the different zoological provinces of the vastly larger extent 

 of country forming British India, it is but natural to suppose 

 that distinctions of still higher value would be characteristic 

 of different parts of Africa, accordingly as they differ from 

 one another in climate, and consequently in vegetable 

 productions. 



As a matter of fact, such differences do occur to a most 

 marked degree ; but when the vast superiority of Africa 

 over India is taken into consideration, the marvel is that 

 the fauna of the greater part of that area is not more 

 dissimilar than it is, and that it has been found possible 

 to include the more typical portion of the continent in one 

 great zoological region or province. 



But the reader will naturally inquire what is meant by 

 calling one portion of a continent more typical than the 

 rest. As has been pointed out in the last article, Northern 

 Africa has, so far as its animals are concerned, been cut off 

 from the districts lying south of the Tropic of Cancer by 

 the great barrier formed by the Sahara ; and as the animals 

 of the districts to the north of that desert are for the 

 most part of a European type, while Southern Europe and 

 Northern Africa were evidently joined by land at no very 

 distant epoch of the earth's history, the districts north of 



