I 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 15 



inmates of the temperate regions of our globe ; while those, 

 again, the general distribution of which must have been 

 regarded rather as a curse than a blessing, have been, with 

 few exceptions, rendered the invariable inmates either of the 

 hottest or the coldest climes. By way of illustration, let 

 us take an example from each of the two extremes. Were 

 a tiger conveyed from the jungles of tropical Asia to tlie 

 northern steppes of Siberia, or the shores of the Arctic 

 Sea, how soon would he lose his gio-antic strength and 

 ferocious vigour ! — or, were a Polar bear transferred from 

 his bleak eternity of floating icebergs to a sultry island 

 of the Indian archipelago, how speedily would the surly 

 savage cease to create alarm ! The spirit of the same 

 observation might be applied to much more serviceable 

 animals, which, however, not being natives of temperate 

 countries, are for that very reason incapable of being 

 rendered useful in the most universal and therefore highest 

 degree. We may adduce as famihar examples the rein- 

 deer and the dromedary, the former of which the wandering 

 Bedouin of the desert would as vainly attempt to rear amid 

 the shifting sands of Arabia, as the Nomadian of the north 

 would the latter on the cold and lofty plains of Finmark or 

 Norway. 



But to proceed with the more immediate subjects of our 

 present inquiry : No sooner do we enter upon the zoology 

 of India Proper, than the European forms of animal lit^e 

 almost entirely disappear, and are succeeded by others of a 

 richer and more varied character of form and aspect, some 

 of which, however, extend to the parallel latitudes of the 

 African continent. The Asiatic islands, again, present us 

 with another picture, and this latter change may be said to 

 commence at the southern extremity of the Isthmus of 

 Malacca. Java and Sumatra will probably be found to be 

 the metropolis or central region of this range, which still 

 produces several of the forms of Northern India ;* while in 



•Among birds, for example, the singular genus EwjCTirw^ ofTem- 

 minclt, which that naturalist places between Accetitor,aT]d Motncilla, 

 which M. Reinwardt regards as pertaining to Latiiw:, and M. Lesson 

 classes with the Miiscica'udce, has been recently received by Professor 

 Jameson from the northern parts of India, it was formerly believed to 

 belong exclusively to Java and Sumatrsi. In like maner the genus Miio- 

 vJuJtius, regarded as peculiar to Java {M. metalltcus, Tern., being a short 



