1846.] Rough Notes on the Zoology of Candahar. 165 



as to quantity and quality. Thus, the Elephants of one forest are often 

 larger than those of another ; and their tusks are somewhat longer in 

 places where their food may happen to be more favourable for the pro- 

 duction of ivory." 61 



Now, precisely the same remarks will apply to the camel, and while, 

 in a country deficient in woody productions, the animal is of small 

 stature, the very reverse is found to be the case in India, where the camel 

 browses entirely on leaves and woody branches favourable to his growth. 

 Every consideration tends to point out to us, that the Indian dromedary 

 is not in its original country, and that adapted as it is by nature for 

 existence in the dry and sandy plains of an arid region like Arabia, its 

 occurrence at all within the influence of the monsoons, is entirely to be 

 attributed to the agency of man, who has brought it with him in a state 

 of domestication from the Postdiluvian focus of diffusion, across moun- 

 tains and broad rapid rivers, which in its natural state of freedom would 

 have formed insuperable barriers to its further progress eastward, than 

 the long range of mountains extending downwards from the great 

 northern chain through Beloochistan even to the sea, forming a well- 

 worked natural boundary between India and the states of Central Asia. 

 The camel of Korassan is formed for grazing in a country where its 

 food is gathered from the ground, and where it has to perform long 

 journeys through mountain passes and defiles ; its shortness and strength 

 of limb are therefore well adapted to its mode of life, and the severity of 

 its climate ; while on the other hand, the Indian variety having a range 

 of long and almost interminable level country to travel over, where its chief 

 food consists of the leaves and tender branches of trees, has become mo- 

 dified by domestication to meet the circumstances of its present condi- 

 tion, and thus its limbs are less powerfully built, its body less clothed 

 with hair, and its proportions adapted to reach the food by which the 

 change has been effected, and in which it delights. 



Much has been said regarding the existence or non-existence of this 

 animal in a state of freedom, and as yet all tends to prove that neither 

 the camel nor the dromedary have been known wild since the present 

 historical era commenced. It can scarcely be thought possible, that 

 animals of such magnitude as these, can be still living wild in herds 

 upon any country of the known earth, and yet that they should have elud- 

 ed the researches of naturalists ; for although it has been stated by 



Gl. Cuvier's 'Theory of the earth.' 



