THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 49 



gators have ploughed the ocean, to judge that there cannot be any- 

 other large tract of land, unless it be at the North Pole, where the ice 

 would not admit of any duration of existence. 



Thus we find that it is from the interior of the large divisions of the 

 world that we can expect unknown quadrupeds. 



But, on a little reflection, we shall soon see that this expectation is 

 hardly more likely to be realized here than in the islands. 



The European traveller does not easily effect his passage through 

 vast extent of countries, desert, or only supporting a ferocious popula- 

 tion, and this is more particularly the case in Africa; but nothing pre- 

 vents animals from overrunning these countries in every direction and 

 approaching the coasts. Although great mountainous chains may in- 

 tervene between the coasts and the deserts of the interior, they would 

 be broken in some places to allow of the passage of the rivers ; and, in 

 these burning deserts, quadrupeds give the preference to the banks of 

 the rivers. The population of these coasts ascend these rivers and 

 soon acquire a knowledge, either from experience, or by commerce 

 and tradition, of the more remote population, and of all the remarka- 

 ble species which live near the sources of the streams. 



At no period have the civilized nations, who have frequented the 

 coasts of a great country, failed in acquiring a knowledge of the largest 

 animals, or those whose formation is peculiar and striking. 



Facts bear out this reasoning. Although the ancients did not pass 

 the Imaus or the Ganges, in Asia, and had not got beyond Mount Atlas, 

 in Africa, they yet knew all the large animals of these parts of the 

 world, and, if they did not distinguish all these species, it was not be- 

 cause they could not have seen or heard speak of them, but because 

 the resemblance of the species would not allow of their discriminating 

 their peculiar characteristics. The only great exception which may be 

 brought against me is the tapir of Malacca, recently sent from India by 

 two young naturalists, pupils of mine, MM. Duvaucel and Diard, and 

 which in fact is one of the most brilliant discoveries with which mo- 

 dern times have enriched natural history. 



The ancients were acquainted with the elephant, and the history of 

 this quadruped is more exact in Aristotle than in Buffon. 



They were not even ignorant of the distinguishing marks between 

 the elephants of Africa and those of Asia* (a). 



* See in my Researches the chapter on elephants. 



( a ) (£?" In tlle Zoological Magazine, January 1st, 1833, p. 20, there is a full de- 

 scription, with a very fair plate, of the one-horned species of India, the Rhinoceros 

 Indicus of Cuvier. From this magazine, which, we lament, was not sufficiently sup- 

 ported to be upheld for a longer period than six months, we extract the following 

 account : — 



