110 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 



easily distinguishable from the first ; the lion, tiger, and pan- 

 ther, of the old continent, correspond to the cougar, jaguar, and 

 ounce, of the New World. The mountains of Europe, Asia, and 

 North America, nourish bears of distinct species, but differing 

 very little from each other. Seals abound especially in the 

 neighbourhood of the polar circles ; and if we seek the proofs of 

 this tendency, not among the highest classes of the animal king- 

 dom, but among the inferior creatures, they will be found not less 

 evident : cray-fishes, for example, appear to be confined to the 

 temperate regions of the globe, and are found throughout Europe, 

 in a species common to European streams ; in the South of 

 Russia, there is a different species ; in North America, there are 

 two species, distinct from the preceding ; in Chile, there is a fourth 

 species; in the south of New Holland, a fifth; in Madagascar, 

 a sixth ; and at the Cape of Good Hope, a seventh. 



A comparison of the faunae peculiar to the different zoological 

 regions of the globe leads to other results for which it is more 

 difficult to account ; when we examine successively the assem- 

 blage of species inhabiting Asia, Africa, and America, we remark 

 that the fauna of the New World is characterized by inferiority, 

 a fact which did not escape the celebrated Buffon. In a word, 

 there are no mammals existing now in the New World as large 

 as those of the old ; it is true, we find, in America, a consider- 

 able number of monkeys, but among them there is none equal to 

 the ourang-outang, or chimpanzee ; the roden'tia and edenta'ta 

 abound most, which, of all ordinary mammals, are the least intel- 

 ligent. Finally, in America, we find opossums, animals belong- 

 ing to an inferior type of ordinary mammals, which have no 

 representative, neither in Europe, nor Asia, nor Africa. If we 

 pass from the New World to the still newer region of Australia, 

 we shall there see a fauna whose inferiority is still more decided, 

 for there the class of mammals is scarcely represented by the 

 Marsu'pials and Monotre'mata. 



As to the limitation of the different zoological regions into 

 which the globe is divided, and the composition of the faunae 

 proper to each, we cannot treat without exceeding our limits ; but 

 we regret this less, because, in the present state of science, these 

 questions are far from being settled. 



Here we terminate our zoological studies : for the object we 

 proposed to ourselves was not a particular description of each 

 animal, nor an enumeration of those characters which would 

 enable us to recognise or group them methodically; we were 

 merely desirous of giving some notion of the nature and proper- 

 ties of th63se creatures, to sketch rapidly the prominent traits of 

 their history, and furnish our young readers the general know- 

 .'edge most useful to all, and indispensable to those who wish to 

 study more profoundly this branch of the sciences of observation 



