MAMMALS. 605 



hates, Simla. To Africa in particular are peculiar the genera 

 CameJo^Kirdalis, Hipjyopotamus, Orijcteroj)us, Cercojnthecus, and to 

 the Island Madagascar Centetes, Lemur, Liclianotus, and the 

 genus Chiromys^ a sciurean rodent, which approaches the Lemurids 

 in form. Most of the species of Antilopes are also exclusively 

 African. The greatest number of species of Marsupials is found in 

 New Holland ; the genus Didelplvys alone is American ; Africa, as 

 well as Europe, does not possess a single species of this division. 

 The Monotremes (the genera Ornithorhynchus and TacJiyglossus) 

 are peculiar to New Holland. In New Holland, on the other hand, 

 as to genera that are dispersed nearly over the whole of the rest 

 of the world (as Gervus, Sciurus, Lepus, Felis, Ursus, Lutra, Cam's, 

 Vesjyertih'o) of a few only a single species occurs, of the most abso- 

 lutely none= The Marsupials, of which all the species scarcely 

 form one-fifteenth of all the land-mammals in the world, form three- 

 fourths of the mammalian fauna of New Holland. On the whole, 

 the statistics, so to speak, of the mammalian families in different 

 countries and climates present great differences. If we take into 

 consideration the entire class of mammals, exclusive of the Ceta- 

 ceans and Plioae, then the rodents form one- third of the entire 

 number of species, the cheiropters and carnivores together about 

 one-third also, whilst the remaining third is formed, for the greater 

 part, of the Quadrumanes and Ruminants, and especially of the 

 Marsupials and insectivorous feroi^. But in Europe, for instance, 

 this proportion is greatly modified, since the marsupiates and 

 quadrumanous animals are absent ; the proportion of rodents re- 

 mains nearly the same ; the cheiropters also form about one-sixth 

 of the entire number ; but the insectivorous feras are in Europe 

 nearly twice more numerous than when the whole are taken into 

 account, and form one-thirteenth of the entire number of the mam- 

 mals ; the species also of carnivora and ruminant animals are pro- 

 portionally much more numerous. In North America the species 

 of rodents form perhaps half the entire number of the species of 

 land-mammals. How different again is the proportion which pre- 

 vails within the tropics may be readily inferred. For to these 

 countries, or at least to the warmer districts, nearly all the genera 



^ Want of space precludes a detail of the grounds of these estimates. The remain- 

 ing orders, however, contain very few species as compared with the whole number. 



