96 HERBIVOROUS QUADRUPEDS. [chap. v. 



the camel, an animal of no mean bulk, has always been 

 considered as the emblem of the desert. 



The belief that where large quadrupeds exist, the vegeta- 

 tion must necessarily be luxuriant, is the more remark- 

 able, because the converse is far from true. Mr. Burchell 

 observed to me that when entering Brazil, nothing struck 

 him more forcibly than the splendour of the South American 

 vegetation contrasted with that of South Africa, together 

 with the absence of all large quadrupeds. In his Travels,* 

 he has suggested that the comparison 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, elan, 

 certainly three, and probably five species of rhinoceros ; 

 and on the American side, two tapirs, the guanaco, three 

 deer, the vicupa, peccari, capybara (after which we must 

 choose from the monkeys to complete the number), and 

 then place these two groups alongside each other, it is 

 not easy to conceive ranks more disproportionate in size. 

 After the above facts, we are compelled to conclude against 

 anterior probability, I that among the mammalia there exists 

 no close relation between the hulk of the species, and the 

 quantity of the vegetation, 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 Southern Africa. After the different 



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



t The elephant which was killed at Exeter Change was estimated (being 

 partly weighed) at five tons and a half. The elephant actress, as 1 was in- 

 formed, weighed one ton less ; so that 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 1,200 

 to 1,500 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 America, allowing 1,200 pounds for the two tapirs together, 550 for 

 the guanaco and vicuna, 500 for three deer, 300 for the capybara, peccari, 

 and a monkey, we shall have an average of 250 pounds, which I believe is 

 overstating the result. The ratio will therefore be as 6,048 to 250, or 24 to i, 

 for the ten largest animals from the two continents. 



X 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 conjecture 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 ? 



