230 THE ETHIOPIAN REGION. [CHAP. 



Before considering the leading characteristics of the Ethiopian 



mammal fauna and its relations to that of other 



characteris- regions, both in the present and the past, it is 



tics of Mam- . & . . 



maiian Fauna, desirable to make reference to certain deficiencies, 

 which are very difficult, if not impossible to explain 

 adequately with our present knowledge. 



Although deer (Cervus), typical pigs (the genus Sus in its 

 restricted sense), and bears are met with in northern Africa, no 

 member of any one of these genera with the single exception of 

 a pig (Sus sennaarensis) from the Sennaar district of Upper Nubia, 

 inhabits Ethiopia. Even the entire family of the Cervtdce is 

 unrepresented. These deficiencies form a most marked contrast 

 between the Ethiopian region on the one hand, and both the 

 Oriental and the Holarctic on the other. Almost equally con- 

 spicuous is the absence of goats and sheep ; the only exceptions 

 being the occurrence of a species of Capra in the highlands of 

 Abyssinia, and one of Hemitragus in Oman, in south-eastern 

 Arabia. The absence of sheep and goats is, however, by no means 

 so remarkable as that of the other groups above mentioned, since 

 the former are exclusively mountain animals, and probably need 

 some general lowering of the temperature to enable them to pass 

 from one chain to another, and of the existence of such cold 

 period there seems no evidence in Ethiopian Africa. A somewhat 

 similar explanation will probably apply to the total absence of 

 marmots (Arctomys\ susliks (Spermophilus], chipmunks (Tamias), 

 beavers (Castoridce], voles (Microtince), and picas (Lagomys), since 

 all these are inhabitants of elevated or northern areas. More diffi- 

 cult to explain is the absence of all shrews (Soricidce), with the 

 exception of one genus peculiar to the region ; but the deficiency 

 of moles (TalpidcR) may perhaps be accounted for by the slow 

 travelling powers of these animals, which did not allow them 

 time to pass into Ethiopia during the (probably short) period 

 when its connection with other regions was of such a nature as to 

 permit their living in the intermediate lands. Possibly also the 

 absence of moles from peninsular India has something to do with 

 this deficiency. In this connection it is worth remark that the 

 place held in the Holarctic region by moles is by no means 

 unoccupied in the Ethiopian, both the golden moles ( Chrysochloris), 



