SOUTHERN AFRICA. 4i« 
The near resemblance of some species of the animals of 
Africa to others, the participation of the same qualities or 
the same external form and appearance, the frequent intro- 
duction to Greece and Kome of animals that were unknown 
before, gave rise to the maxim that " Africa was always pro- 
" ducing something new." And the reasoning employed for 
explaining this fertile source of novelty is recorded by 
Plin}^ in his Natural History. " Africa hcec maxime spectaf, 
" inopia aquariun ad paucos amnes ^ongregantihus se feris. 
" Ideo multiformes ibi animalium partm^ varie fwminis ciijus- 
" que generis mares aiit vi aut voluptate miscentes. Unde 
" etiam vulgare GrcEcice dictum^ semper aliquid novi Africa 
" afferre." Thus the leopard was supposed to be the mixed 
breed of a lion and a panther ; the giraffe^ of the camel and. 
the leopard ; the qiiacha^ of the zebra and the ass. And 
although this opinion has long been set aside, and the fact 
fully established, that animals in a state of nature will never 
violate the laws of nature, and that, although hybrids are 
sometimes produced, no new race can be propagated even 
by the arts of domestication, the opinion was at least en- 
titled to as much respect as the conjecture of a celebrated 
French naturalist, that the branching horns of the stag might 
originally have been produced by the new moulding of the 
branches of trees on which he feeds. Had this whimsical 
theory, worthy the adoption of the Darwinian doctrine, (stolen 
in fact chiefly from Buftbn,) been actually realized, the scarcity 
of trees in Africa might be offered as a satisfactory explanation 
of the want of stags on this continent ; not a single deer with 
branched horns being known to exist between the Mediter- 
3 G 2 
