MOUNTAIN FAUNAS 79 
haunts streams and feeds upon aquatic insects and 
their larvae, tadpoles, and small fish; the desman 
(Myogale pyrenaica) of the Pyrenees inhabits the banks 
of streams in that mountain range, and spends a con- 
siderable part of its time in the water; the Tibetan 
mole-shrew (Uropsilus soricipes) is a small cursorial 
animal, seeming to be intermediate between moles and 
shrews. The insectivores are, however, losers in the 
battle of life, and there is nothing remarkable in the 
fact that peculiar forms are found in mountain ranges, 
when we remember the shifts the members of the group 
have been put to in order to survive in a world where 
the mammals as a whole have better developed brains 
and greater differentiation of structure than they can 
boast. of. 
Carnivores, as we have seen, are not very abundant. 
The forms which inhabit the neighbouring regions— 
forest or steppe—may extend also into the mountain 
regions, but peculiar forms are not numerous, the bear 
alliance being that with most mountain representatives. 
Of the cats the most characteristically mountain 
form is the ounce or snow leopard (Felis uncia, Fig. 12), 
a beautiful animal with very thick fur, greyish above, 
with black spots, and pure white below. In Ladak it 
is said to ascend as high as 18,000 feet in summer time, 
and not to descend lower than 9,000 feet in winter. It 
attacks wild goats and sheep, and also rodents, but its 
habits are not well known. In the New World the 
puma (Felis concolor, Fig. 26), though not specifically a 
mountain animal, attains a considerable height in 
the Rocky Mountains, and is stated to Biey upon the 
Bighorn sheep. 
Of other cat-like carnivores extending into moun- 
tainous regions, we may note that the lynx of the 
