138 MOSTLY MAMMALS 



the Sahara are for zoological purposes regarded as part 

 of Europe and Asia. Typical, or Ethiopian Africa, as it is 

 more generally termed, includes, therefore, only such portion 

 of the continent as lies to the south of the northern tropic. 



But some critical reader may perhaps be led to remark 

 that some at least of the animals of Northern Africa 

 are common to the south ; the lion, whose range extends 

 from Algeria to the Cape, affording a case in point. To 

 this it may be replied that, popular prejudice notwith- 

 standing, the lion cannot in any sense be looked upon as 

 a characteristic African animal. Although year by year 

 growing rarer, it to this day still lingers on in certain parts 

 of Western India, while it is likewise found in Persia and 

 Mesopotamia, and within the historic period was common in 

 South-Eastern Europe. At a still earlier epoch, as attested 

 by its fossilised remains, it was an inhabitant of our own 

 island. It may, therefore, to a certain degree be regarded 

 as a cosmopolitan animal, which may have obtained entrance 

 into Africa by more than one route. In a minor degree 

 the same may be said of the hippopotamus, which was 

 formerly found in the lower reaches of the Nile, and at 

 a much earlier epoch in many parts of Europe, inclusive 

 of Britain. Being an aquatic animal, it can avail itself of 

 routes of communication which are closed to purely terrestrial 

 creatures. 



Of the fauna of typical Africa, as a whole, some of the 

 most striking features are of a negative nature ; that is to 

 say, certain groups which are widely spread in most other 

 districts of the Old World are conspicuous by their absence. 

 This deficiency is most marked in the case of bears and 

 deer, neither of which are represented throughout the whole 

 of this vast expanse of country. Pigs allied to the wild 

 swine of Europe and India are likewise lacking, their place 



