III ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 309 
for any that can be said to be distinctive of the tropics as 
compared with the temperate regions. Many peculiar groups 
are tropical, but they are in almost every case confined to 
limited portions of the tropical zones, or are rare in species or 
individuals. Such are the lemurs in Africa, Madagascar, and 
Southern Asia ; the tapirs of America and Malaya ; the rhino- 
ceroses and elephants of Africa and Asia; the cavies and the 
sloths of America; the scaly ant-eaters of Africa and Asia ; 
but none of these are sufficiently numerous to come often 
before the traveller so as to affect his general ideas of the 
aspects of tropical life, and they are, therefore, out of place 
in such a sketch of those aspects as we are here attempting 
to lay before our readers. 
Summary of the Aspects of Animal Life in the Tropics 
We will now briefly summarise the general aspects of 
animal life as forming an ingredient in the scenery and natural 
phenomena of the equatorial regions. Most prominent are 
the butterflies, owing to their numbers, their size, and their 
brilliant colours, as well as their peculiarities of form, and 
the slow and majestic flight of many of them. In other 
insects, the large size and frequency of protective colours 
and markings are prominent features, together with the 
inexhaustible profusion of the ants and other small insects. 
Among birds the parrots stand forth as the pre-eminent 
tropical group, as do the apes and monkeys among mammals, 
the two groups having striking analogies in the prehensile 
hand and the power of imitation. Of reptiles, the two most 
prominent groups are the lizards and the frogs; the snakes, 
though equally abundant, being much less obtrusive. 
Animal life is, on the whole, far more abundant and more 
varied within the tropics than in any other part of the globe, 
and a great number of peculiar groups are found there which 
never extend into temperate regions. Endless eccentricities 
of form and extreme richness of colour are its most prominent 
features, and these are manifested in the highest degree in 
those equatorial lands where the vegetation acquires its 
greatest beauty and its fullest development. The causes of 
these essentially tropical features are not to be found in the 
comparatively simple influence of solar light and heat, but 
