MR. DARWIN ON GREAT HERDS OF DESERT GAME. 53 



dent by the many engravings which have been published of 

 the various parts of the interior. The fact that bullock wag- 

 gons can travel in any direction, excepting near the coast, 

 without more than an occasional half-hour's delay in cutting 

 down bushes, gives perhaps a more definite notion of the 

 scantiness of the vegetation. Now if we look to the animals 

 inhabiting these wide plains, we shall find their numbers 

 extraordinarily great, and their bulk immense. We must 

 enumerate the elephant: three species, and probably five of 

 rhinoceros; the hippopotamus, giraffe, buffalo, two zebras, 

 the quagga, two gnus, and several antelopes, even larger 

 than these latter animals. Besides these large animals every- 

 one has read of the herds of antelopes which can be com- 

 pared only with flocks of migratory birds, while the numbers 

 of lions, panthers, and hyaenas, and the multitude of birds of 

 prey, plainly speak of the abundance of the small quadru- 

 peds." * 



Mr. Darwin thinks that there can be no doubt that 

 our ideas as to the amount of herbaceous food 

 necessary for the support of large quadrupeds are 

 much exaggerated, many of the larger kinds of animals 

 being tree-feeders, whose food chiefly consists of 

 underwood. Now the twigs of this class of small 

 trees and shrubs have a very rapid growth in the 

 regular jungle region especially where the}^ grow in the 

 neighbourhood of springs, etc., and as fast as a partis con- 

 sumed, its place is supplied by the growth of a fresh stock. 



Another of the characteristics of many of these 

 shrubs is that they send down their roots to very great 

 depths into the subsoil, so that they frequently tap the 

 subterranean springs, and so obtain an abundant supply 



* 4 Naturalist's Voyage rottnd the World in H.M.S. " Beagle, " 

 during the years 1832 to 1836, by Charles Darwin, 1 5th Edit., 1879, 

 pp. 85 and 86. 



