2 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



Readei'S who may be interested in that very important 

 question are referred to the author's recent work, entitled 

 *' The Origin of Human Reason " (Kegan Paul, Trench, 

 Triibner & Co.). It is pretty certain, however, that were 

 apes as like us mentally as they are bodily, that very 

 similarity would result in a notable difference. Some 

 men are Radicals and some Conservatives, but apes would 

 give a solid vote for the most Conservative ticket, since 

 that progress and advance of civilisation which pleases 

 most of us means, ultimately, death to them. 



Progress has indeed its drawbacks, even for the zoolo- 

 gist and for every passionate lover of Nature. Since the 

 days when Banks and Solander were carried by Captain 

 Cook round the globe to explore new regions, what havcc 

 has not been committed ! That fair, new world upon 

 which they gazed with admiration and wonder, such as 

 we might feel could we visit another planet, is being 

 rapidly deprived of its interesting animal inhabitants ; 

 even more, perhaps, through the pernicious agency of 

 enthusiasts for "acclimatisation" than by the spread of 

 agriculture or the multiplication of flocks and herds. The 

 plains of Africa, which only half a century ago teemed 

 with wild animals, are becoming a zoological desert, and 

 the " common" zebra is now almost extinct, while the 

 bison (so often called buffalo) would very soon be exter- 

 minated but for the protection of the autocratic empire 

 of the East and the great republic of the West. 



In the forests and jungles, the wide wastes and rocky 

 fastnesses of the tropics, however, the agile ape will yet 

 long hold his own on both sides of the Atlantic. 



Every one knows that there are monkeys in tropical 

 America, no less than in Africa and Asia ; but few 

 persons who are not naturalists know how strangely 

 different are the species which inhabit the Old World 



