BAHIA BLANCA chap. 



elan, certainly three, and probably five species of rhinoceros ; 

 and on the American side, two tapirs, the guanaco, three deer, 

 the vicuna, peccari, capybara (after which we must choose from 

 the monkeys to complete the number), and then place these 

 two groups alongside each other, it is not easy to conceive ranks 

 more disproportionate in size. After the above facts, we are 

 compelled to conclude, against anterior probability,^ that among 

 the mammalia there exists no close relation between the bulk of 

 the species and the quantity of the vegetation in the countries 

 which they inhabit. 



With regard to the number of large quadrupeds, there cer- 

 tainly exists no quarter of the globe which will bear comparison 

 with Southern Africa. After the different statements which 

 have been given, the extremely desert character of that region 

 will not be disputed. In the European division of the world, 

 we must look back to the tertiary epochs, to find a condition 

 of things among the mammalia, resembling that now existing at 

 the Cape of Good Hope. Those tertiary epochs, which we are 

 apt to consider as abounding to an astonishing degree with 

 large animals, because we find the remains of many ages accu- 

 mulated at certain spots, could hardly boast of more large 

 quadrupeds than Southern Africa does at present. If we 

 speculate on the condition of the vegetation during those epochs, 

 we are at least bound so far to consider existing analogies, as 

 not to urge as absolutely necessary a luxuriant vegetation, 

 when we see a state of things so totally different at the Cape of 

 Good Hope. 



We know^ that the extreme regions of North America 



these premises we may give three tons and a half to each of the five rhinoceroses ; 

 perhaps a ton to the giraffe, and half to the bos caifer as well as to the elan (a large 

 ox weighs from 1200 to 1500 pounds). This will give an average (from the above 

 estimates) of 2.7 of a ton for the ten largest herbivorous animals of Southern Africa. 

 In South America, allowing 1200 pounds for the two tapirs together, 550 for the 

 guanaco and vicuna, 500 for three deer, 300 for the capybara, peccari, and a monkey, 

 we shall have an average of 250 pounds, which I believe is overstating the result. 

 The ratio will therefore be as 6048 to 250, or 24 to i, for the ten largest animals 

 from the two continents. 



^ If we suppose the case of the discovery of a skeleton of a Greenland whale in a 

 fossil state, not a single cetaceous animal being known to exist, what naturalist would 

 have ventured conjecture on the possibility of a carcass so gigantic being supported 

 on the minute Crustacea and mollusca living in the frozen seas of the extreme 

 North ? 



^ See Zoological Remarks to Capt. Back's Expedition, by Dr. Richardson. He 

 says, "The subsoil north of latitude 56" is perpetually frozen, the thaw on the coast 



