CLIMATIC INFLUENCES. 37 



cool mountain heights as amidst the hot and jungly lowlands. In 

 Ceylon, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, "the mountain-tops, 

 and not the sultry valleys, are his favorite resort. In Oovah, where 

 the elevated plains are often crisp with the morning frost, and on 

 Pedro-Tella-Galla, at the height of upwards of eight thousand feet, 

 they are found in herds, whilst the hunter may search for them 

 without success in the jungles of the low country. No altitude, in 

 fact, seems too lofty or too chill for the elephant, provided it affords 

 the luxury of water in abundance; and, contrary to the general 

 opinion that the elephant delights in sunshine, he seems at all times 

 impatient of its glare, and spends the day in the thickest depths of 

 the forest, devoting the night to excursions, and to the luxury of 

 the bath, in which he also indulges occasionally by day. " w Mr. 

 Johnston, during his recent explorations of the Kilimanjaro region, 

 encountered elephants, together with buffaloes, and one or more spe- 

 cies of antelope (kudu), at an elevation of thirteen thousand feet. 12 ' 



The camel is an animal popularly associated with the burning 

 desert regions of Africa and Asia, yet the two-humped or Bactrian 

 species is found throughout the greater portion of Mongolia and 

 Chinese Tartary, in the mountain region as well as in the lowlands, 

 lying between the fortieth and fiftieth parallels of latitude, and it 

 extends its range even considerably beyond the fiftieth parallel into 

 Siberia, as along the borders of Lake Baikal, where it appears to 

 pass the winter season without discomfort. It is a fact worthy of 

 note that the only other existing representatives of the camel family 

 the llama and llama-like animals of the New World are strictly 

 adapted to a rigourous winter climate, as is shown by their partiality 

 to the highly-elevated tracts of the South American Andes. The 

 same adaptability to different extremes of climate likewise presents 

 itself in the case of many of the so called Arctic animals. The 

 reindeer, while it habitually prefers for its home a region that en- 

 joys a more or less rigourous climate, and where the soil is for the 

 greater part of the year covered with snow, does not appear to be 

 impatient of the summer heat of comparatively low latitudes, as is 

 proved by the circumstance that in the various zoological gardens 

 of Central Europe it not only develops in good condition, but also 

 breeds freely. Indeed, its restriction to the high northern latitudes 

 appears to be in no way dependent on considerations connected 

 with either cold or snow, but merely upon the presence there in the 



