MAMMALIA. 
11 
must have immigrated either from Senegambia or Abyssinia, 
their affinities being decidedly African (not European) . The 
plains of Central Asia likewise were once covered by the sea, 
and consequently their fauna also must be descended from that 
of neighbouring regions. But we find the animals of the desert 
strikingly characterized by, and differing from the original types 
in a peculiarly modified coloration, which, in the case of the 
animals of the Sahara, must have been caused by the rays of the 
sun, and in the case of those of the deserts of Asia, by con- 
tact with the soil (contact du sol). The latter animals have 
acquired, in the course of time, other differentiating charaeters — 
for instance, a denser and longer fur (Siberian Tiger, Felis 
irbis), those of the Sahara much developed aural conchae; 
and, in accordance with this, the savage tribes (of man) inha- 
biting the plains of Central Asia are distinguished by a great 
acuteness of the senses of hearing, seeing, and smelling. We 
care not to follow the author into the details by which he 
attempts to show that these physiological peculiarities of the 
Kalmucks, &c., are aecompanied bj^ corresponding external and 
anatomical modifications of the organs of sense. 
In § 2* M. Pucheran states that the number of centres of 
creation has been unduly increased by zoologists, that there 
must be an assemblage of genera and families (not of species 
only) to justify us in establishing a separate centre of creation, 
that Africa, having representatives of almost all its tjqies in 
Asia or Europe, eannot be regarded as inhabited by a speeial 
fauna, but that New Holland and South Ameriea ought to be 
held in this respect distinct from the rest of the globe. 
He then enters into the details of the well-known eharac- 
teristicsof the South- American mammalian and ornithic faunas. 
As regards Mexico, he maintains that those mammals which it 
has in common with North America have a shorter and thinner 
pelage than their representatives in the more northern pro- 
vinces, but, on the other hand, that the pelage is longer in such 
of the Mexican species as have their “ homologues in South 
J-’U’- CA - >J rJf'~ \ 
Reinhardt, J. Om Klapmydsens. ufodte Unge og dens Mel-'^ 
ketandsaet. Vid. Meddel. natpirh. Foren. Kjobnh. for 1864. 
1865, pp. 248-264, with a woodcut. 
[On the Foetus of Cystopliora, and its milk-teeth.] 
Saussure, II. de. Note supplementaire sur les Mammiferes 
* M. Pucheran does not appear to have been well acquainted with the 
literature connected with the subject of the geographical distribution of 
animals; at all events he does not mention previous authors who have 
worked in the same field and arrived at some of the conclusions which he 
himself has. 
