PREFACE. XIII 



with regard to this, to say at present, that the 

 first and second volumes are mainly devoted to 

 a description of these zones. It may be objected 

 that they embrace the world's whole terrestrial 

 surface, and not merely those portions of it which 

 are (or lately were) in a state of Nature. 



That is so but we have specially chosen the 

 wild and uncultivated domain of Nature; tracts 

 of which still exist in all countries for our study, 

 for several reasons, which will appear more clearly 

 fuuher on in this work but principally because 

 there we see the world, as Nature herself first 

 laid it out, unchanged by the results of human 

 occupation, with its consequent almost complete 

 transformation of the landscape, including its original 

 fauna and flora. 



Who for instance would recognize, the weedy 

 clearing of the American back-woods, with its rude 

 log-huts, their shabby occupants, and fire-blackened 

 stumps dotted over the fields, as the grand primeval 

 forest country of Oregon or California? Who would 

 regard the South African grass veld, over whose 

 dreary monotonous surface one may now travel 

 for hundreds of miles, without seeing a single head 

 of game ot any description; as the counti/, where 

 just half a centuiy ago, Gordon Gumming chased 

 the magnificent herds of wild game, which then 

 literally covered the country? If we see a tree 

 there, the great chances are it belongs, not to the 

 South African, but to the Australian forest flora ! 

 If we see a beast, it is probably an ox, a horse, or 

 a sheep, introduced into the country by the European 

 settler ! 



