DECREASE IN SIZE OF WTED ANIMAES. 527 



nor has one ever been exhibited in England. There is 

 only one very young calf of the species in the British 

 Museum. 



The abundance of food in this country, as compared 

 with the south, would lead one to suppose that animals 

 here must attain a much greater size ; but actual measure- 

 ment now confirms the impression made on my mind by 

 the mere sight of the animals, that those in the districts 

 north of 20 were smaller than the same races existing 

 southward of that latitude. The first time that Mr. 

 Oswell and myself saw full-grown male elephants on the 

 river Zouga, they seemed no larger than the females 

 (which are always smaller than males) we had met on 

 the Limpopo. There they attain a height of upwards of 

 12 feet. At the Zouga the height of one I measured was 

 11 feet 4 inches, and in this district 9 feet 10 inches. 

 There is, however, an increase in the size of the tusks as 

 we approach the equator. Unfortunately, I never made 

 measurements of other animals in the south ; but the 

 appearance of the animals themselves in the north, at 

 once produced the impression on my mind referred to, as 

 to their decrease in size. When we first saw koodoos, 

 they were so much smaller than those we had been accus- 

 tomed to in the south, that we doubted whether they were 

 not a new kind of antelope ; and the leche, seen nowhere 

 south of 20 , is succeeded by the poku as we go north. 

 This is, in fact, only a smaller species of that antelope, 

 with a more reddish colour. A great difference in size 

 prevails also among domestic animals ; but the influence 

 of locality on them is not so well marked. The cattle of 

 the Batoka, for instance, are exceedingly small and very 

 beautiful, possessing generally great breadth between the 

 eyes and a very playful disposition. They are much 

 smaller than the aboriginal cattle in the south ; but it 

 must be added that those of the Barotse valley, in the 

 same latitudes as the Batoka, are large. The breed may 

 have come from the west, as the cattle within the influence 

 of the sea air, as at Little Fish Bay, Benguela, Ambriz, 

 and along that coast, are very large. Those found at 

 Lake Ngami, with large horns and standing 6 feet high, 

 probably come from the same quarter. The goats are 

 also small, and domestic fowls throughout this country 

 are of a very small size, and even dogs, except where the 

 inhabitants have had an opportunity of improving the 



