36 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



cold plains of Manchuria and the Amoor region, as well as of the 

 plains lying north of the Hindu-Kush, in Bokhara, prowling about 

 even in winter along the icy margins of the Aral Sea. As a matter 

 of fact, the range of the tiger extends to about the fifty-third paral- 

 lel of north latitude or what corresponds to the position of Lake 

 Winnipeg, in British America in the neighbourhood of Irkutsk and 

 Lake Baikal. Nor can this northern range be taken to represent 

 the range of simply stray individuals, since in the region of South- 

 east Siberia traversed by Radde that traveller affirms that tigers 

 were uncommonly abundant. 11 



Although at the present time the lion is confined almost exclu- 

 sively to the tropical and sub-tropical regions of Africa and Asia, 

 there can be but little doubt, as appears from the writings of Herod- 

 otus and Aristotle, that as late as the beginning of the historic 

 period that animal still inhabited in Europe a region lying as far 

 north as about the fortieth parallel of latitude or what corre- 

 sponds in position to the State of Pennsylvania namely, the region 

 of Thessaly, in Greece. And even at the present day the Tunisian 

 lion is occasionally found in the neighbourhood of the thirty-seventh 

 parallel of north latitude, and until recently the Cape lion was 

 abundant in or about the district of the Cape, extending to the 

 thirty-fifth parallel of south latitude. Although the climate of 

 these latitudes in Africa is of an unusually mild character, yet there 

 are sudden changes of temperature, as between day and night, 

 which may be likened to the changes in the temperature between 

 the summer and winter climates of more temperate regions. We 

 are informed by travellers that in the Kalahari Desert and other dry 

 open districts of South Africa the nights are frequently unpleasant- 

 ly cool, or even cold, the free and rapid radiation of heat from the 

 soil not rarely being accompanied by a freezing of the surface. The 

 formation of ice in the Desert of Sahara is, likewise, not exactly of 

 exceptional occurrence, but in that region of the African continent, 

 except on its immediate borders, lions are only rarely met with. 



That a restriction to warm climates is likewise not the case with 

 the elephant is almost conclusively proved by the readiness with 

 which, in the Roman period, these animals were made to pass the 

 barrier offered by the lofty Alpine chain. Still more indisputable 

 evidence on this point is, however, afforded by the habits of the 

 Indian elephant, which appears to be equally at home among the 



