I833-] fOOD OF LARGE QUADRUPEDS. 61 



long extensile tongue like that of the giraffe, which, by wie of those 

 beautiful provisions of nature, thus reaches with the aid of its long neck 

 its leafy food. I may remark, that in Abyssinia the elephant, according 

 to Bruce, when it cannot reach with its proboscis the branches, deeply 

 scores with its tusks the trunk of the tree, up and down and all round, 

 till it is sufficiently weakened to be broken down. 



The beds including the above fossil remains, stand only from fifteen to 

 twenty feet above the level of high-water ; and hence the elevation of 

 the land has been small (without there has been an intercalated period of 

 subsidence, of which we have no evidence) since the great quadrupeds 

 wandered over the surrounding plains ; and the external features of the 

 country must then have been very nearly the same as now. What, it 

 may naturally be asked, was the character of the vegetation at that period ; 

 was the country as wretchedly sterile as it now is ? As so many of the co- 

 embedded shells are the same with those now living in the bay, I was 

 at first inclined to think that the former vegetation was probably similar 

 to the existing one ; but this would have been an erroneous inference, 

 for some of these same shells live on the luxuriant coast of Brazil ; and 

 generally, the character of the inhabitants of the sea is useless as a guide 

 to judge of those on the land. Nevertheless, from the following con- 

 siderations, I do not believe that the simple fact of many gigantic 

 quadrupeds having lived on the plains round Bahia Blanca, is any sure 

 guide that they formerly were clothed with a luxuriant vegetation : I 

 have no doubt that the sterile country a little southward, near the 

 Rio Negro, with its scattered thorny trees, would support many and 

 large quadrupeds. 



That large animals require a luxuriant vegetation, has been a general 

 assumption which has passed from one work to another ; but I do 

 not hesitate to say that it is completely false, and that it has vitiated 

 the reasoning of geologists on some points of great interest in the 

 ancient history of the world. The prejudice has probably been derived 

 from India and the Indian islands, where troops of elephants, noble 

 forests, and impenetrable jungles, are associated together in every 

 one's mind. If, however, we refer to any work of travels through the 

 southern parts of Africa, we shall find allusions in almost every page 

 either to the desert character of the country, or to the numbers of 

 large animals inhabiting it. The same thing is rendered evident by the 

 many engravings which have been published of various parts of the 

 interior. When the Beagle was at Cape Town, I made an excursion 

 of some days' length into the country, which at least was sufficient to 

 render that which I had read more fully intelligible. 



Dr. Andrew Smith, who, at the head of his adventurous party, has 

 lately succeeded in passing the Tropic of Capricorn, informs me that, 

 taking into consideration the whole of the southern part of Africa, 

 there can be no doubt of its being a sterile country. On the southern 

 and south-eastern coasts there are some fine forests, but with these 

 exceptions, the traveller may pass for days together through open 

 plains, covered by a poor and scanty vegetation. It is difficult to 



