112 BAIIIA BLANCA. 



elan, certainly three, and probably five species of 

 rhinoceros ; and on the American side, two tapirs, 

 the guanaco, three deer, the vicuna, peccari, capy- 

 bara (after which we must choose from the mon- 

 keys to comjilete the number), and then place these 

 two gi-oujDS alongside each other, it is not easy to 

 conceive ranks more disproportionate in size. 

 After the above facts, we are compelled to con- 

 clude, against anterior probability,* that among the 

 maminalia their exists no close relation between 

 the hulk of the species, and the quantity of the ve- 

 getation, in the countries which they inhabit. 



With regard to the number of large quadrupeds, 

 there certainly exists no quarter of the globe which 

 will bear comparison with South Africa. After the 

 different statements which have been given, the 

 extremely desert character of that region will not 

 be disputed. In the European division of the 

 world, we must look back to the tertiary epochs 

 to find a condition of things among the mammalia 

 resembling that now existing at the Cape of Good 

 Hope. Those tertiary epochs, which we are apt 



we may take five as the average of a full-grown elephant. I was 

 told at the Surrey Gardens that a hippopotamus which was sent 

 to England cut up into pieces was estimated at three tons and a 

 half: we will call it three. From these premises we may give 

 three tons and a half to each of the five rhinoceroses, perhaps a 

 ton to the giraffe, and half to the bos caffer as well as to the elan 

 (a large ox weighs from 1200 to 1500 pounds). This will give an 

 average (from the above estimates) of 2-7 of a ton for the ten 

 largest herbivorous animals of Southern Africa. In South Amer- 

 ica, allowing 1200 pounds for the two tapirs together, 550 for the 

 guanaco and vicuna, 500 for three deer, 300 for the capybara, pec- 

 cari, and a monkey, we shall have an average of 250 pounds, 

 which I believe is overstating the result. The ratio will there- 

 fore be as CO-IS to 250, or 24 to 1, for the ten largest animals from 

 the two continents. 



* If we suppose the case of the discovery of a skeleton of a 

 Greenland whale in a fossil state, not a single cetaceous animal 

 being known to exist, what naturalist would have ventured con- 

 jecture on the possibility of a carcass so gigantic being supported 

 on the minute Crustacea and mollusca living in the frozen seas of 

 the extreme North ? 



