FOOD OF LARGE dUADRUPED.?, Ill 



one evening seven lions were counted at the same 

 time prowling round Dr. Smith's encampment. 

 As this able naturalist remarked to me, the carnage 

 each day in Southern Africa must indeed be ter- 

 rific ! I confess it is truly surprising how such a 

 number of animals can find support in a country 

 producing so little food. The larger quadrupeds 

 no doubt roam over wide tracks in search of it ; 

 and their food chiefly consists of underwood, which 

 probably contains much nutriment in a small bulk. 

 Dr. Smith also informs me that the vegetation has 

 a rapid growth; no sooner is a part consumed, 

 than its place is supplied by a fresh stock. There 

 can be no doubt, however, that our ideas respect- 

 ing the apparent amount of food necessary for the 

 support of large quadrupeds are much exaggerated: 

 it should have been remembered that the camel, 

 an animal of no mean bulk, has always been con- 

 sidered as the emblem of the desert. 



The belief that where large quadrupeds exist, 

 the vegetation must necessarily be luxuriant, is the 

 more remarkable, because the converse is far from 

 true. Mr. Biu'chell observed to me that, when en- 

 tering Brazil, nothing struck him more forcibly 

 than the splendour of the South American vege- 

 tation contrasted with that of South Africa, to- 

 gether with the absence of all large quadrupeds. 

 In his Travels,* he has suggested that the com- 

 parison of the respective weights (if there were 

 sufficient data) of an equal number of the largest 

 herbivorous quadrupeds of each country would be 

 extremely curious. If we take, on the one side, 

 the elephant,t hippopotamus, giraffe, bos caffer, 



* Travels in the interior of South Africa, vol. ii., p. 207. 



t The elephant which was killed at Exeter Change was esti- 

 mated (being partly weighed) at five tons and a half. The ele- 

 phant actress, as 1 was informed, weighed one ton less ; so that 



