82 BAHIA BLANCA. [CHAP. v. 



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, f 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 vicuna, 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,^: 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 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. 



* 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 I was in- 

 termed, 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 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 America, allowing 1200 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 6048 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 conjecture on the possibility of a car- 

 cass so gigantic being supported on the minute Crustacea and mollusca 

 living in the frozen seas of the extreme North ? 



