744 Recent Literature. [ November, 
at Para, at the sources of the Rio Negro or on the Upper 
Amazon, the equatorial climate is essentially the same, and we 
have no reason to believe that it materially differs in Guinea or 
the Congo.” On the other hand the glacial period disturbed the 
uniformity of the temperate zone and caused a partial extinction 
of life. Where there are departures from the typical equatorial 
climate, as in rainless and desert tracts, this seems probably due 
to the nature of the soil or the artificial clearing away of the 
forests, and he cites the case of Central India where “ the scanty 
and intermittent rainfall, with its fearful accompaniment of famine, 
is no doubt in great part due to the absence of a sufficient pro- 
portion of forest-covering to the earth’s surface.” He then calls 
attention to the fact that “ with but few and unimportant excep- 
tions a great forest band from a thousand to fifteen hundred miles 
in width girdles the earth at the equator, clothing hill, plain, and 
mountain with an evergreen mantle. Lofty peaks and precipitous 
ridges are sometimes bare, but often the woody covering con- 
tinues to a height of eight or ten thousand feet, as in some of the 
volcanic mountains of Java, and on portions of the Eastern 
Andes.” This forest belt merges into woody and then open 
country, soon changing into arid plains or even into deserts, where 
the great equatorial currents of air laden with moisture do not 
penetrate. 
The primeval forests of the equatorial zone are distinguished 
from the forests of the temperate zones by their vastness, “and by 
the display of a force of development and vigor of growth rarely 
or never witnessed in temperate climates.” There is also a great 
variety of specific forms, while the individuals are less numerous, 
this being the reverse of what is to be seen in the Temperate and 
Arctic Zones. 
Animal life is likewise more abundant and varied specifically, 
many groups, as butterflies, parrots, humming birds, apes and 
monkeys, lizards, frogs and ‘snakes being pre- -eminently tropical, 
and in the tropics, “evolution has had a fair chance” while in the 
Temperate Zone, with its glacial periods, “it has had countless 
difficulties thrown in its way. The equatorial regions are then, 
as regards their past and present life history, a more ancient 
world than that represented by the Temperate Zones, a world in 
= — which the laws which have governed the progressive develop- 
_ ment of life have operated with comparatively little check for 
function, and of instinct—that rich variety of color, and that 
ly balanced harmony of ne which delight and ‘astonish 
imal p tropical countries,” 
> chapters on ENER life occupy the first half of the 
second half is devoted to essays on the color of ani- — 
the — of et op on some relations: 
