48 ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 



and great magnificence. As heat and moisture princi- 

 pally tend to the increase of vegetation, and to its lux- 

 urious developeraent, so is the latter always accompanied 

 hy a corresponding exuberance of animal forms : both 

 are in their highest developement in equinoctial latitudes, 

 and both progressively diminish towards the poles. 

 It is, consequently, in the southern provinces of India 

 that all the features of Asiatic zoology are most con- 

 spicuous. 



{66.) Commencing with the quadrupeds, we find a 

 striking characteristic of this region, in the numerous 

 but disgusting race of apes and baboons ; of whose ex- 

 istence in Europe, even at the most remote period, there 

 is not the slightest record. These satyr-like creatures 

 seem to congregate as we advance to the equinoctial 

 line : the long armed gibbons being principally found 

 on the isthmus of Malacca, while the oran-outangs ap- 

 pear more especially to be natives of the great islands. 

 The subgenera Hylobates, Presbytis, Nasalis, and Sim- 

 nopithecus are peculiar to this hemisphere, which has 

 already furnished twenty-three species of these apes and 

 baboons. The analogy between the animals of Equi- 

 noctial India, and those under the same latitudes in 

 Africa, is here very strikingly illustrated. The apes 

 and baboons of the latter continent occur under similar 

 degrees of latitude, and, in several instances, belong to 

 the same genera, but the number is greater. Yet, as 

 a proof how truly distinct are the two zoological pro- 

 vinces, we may remark, as a singular fact, that only one 

 species has yet been discovered as a native inhabitant 

 of both ; this is the grey baboon, whose geographic 

 range is also removed from the equator ; being found at 

 Moco, the Persian Gulf, and in Arabia ; countries lying 

 on the confines of the two continents. These parallel 

 analogies, or mutual representations, are always highly 

 interesting. Thus we find the Indian oran-outang, ty- 

 pified on the African continent by the Chimpanzee, con- 

 sidered by Linnaeus as a wild man, and stiU affirmed. 



