8 ANIMAL LIFE 



recognised. The voyages of the Spaniards and Por- 

 tuguese, of Cook and his successors, revealed the 

 presence of new races of men in many parts of the 

 globe, while only sixteen years ago Stanley discovered 

 a race of pigmies living in the equatorial forests of 

 Africa. Strange stories of manlike apes were brought 

 from Africa and Asia by travellers who described the 

 ferocity and strength of these gorillas and orang-utans. 

 From American settlers came news of the herds of bison 

 that roamed the prairies, travelling from grazing- 

 ground to salt-lick with the same mysterious and 

 unfaltering precision that the camel of Eastern deserts 

 shows in adopting its line of march. Hunters told 

 of the life of the jungle, with its strange midday silence, 

 that each night and morning wakens into a roar of 

 activity ; and sailors brought back from their voyages 

 parrots and monkeys, pearl-shells and coral, mementos 

 of their travels that added emphasis to the recital 

 of their beach-combing adventures and opened vistas 

 of new worlds to their enthralled hearers. And still 

 there return, from the exploration of lands untrodden 

 before by white men, travellers laden with tidings of 

 new animals. The tale of earth's fulness is not yet 

 complete. 



Life in water as well as on land has become known 

 to us in similar ways. 



The craft of fishing and the need for water-transport 

 brought the abundance of aquatic life early to the 

 notice of men. In pursuit of their livelihood, fishermen 

 could not fail to notice the birds of the marshes, the 



