THE AMERICAN FAUNA AND ITS ORIGIN. 
193 
absent from America, that the highest and the lowest are also- 
absent, for there are no anthropoid apes and no monotremes ; 
that Proboscidia is wanting and that Carnivora and Ungulata 
are but poorly represented. Excluding man, both the highest- 
and the lowest of the Primates are absent, so that we look in 
vain for the lemurs as well as the higher apes. The great and 
widespread family of Equidse is also absent, for neither horses 
nor asses are indigenous to any part of America. So, too, Siis 
or the common pig is wanting, and so also are our familiar oxen 
and sheep. Besides these the following well-known animals 
of the Old World are not to be found on the American 
continent : — 
Camel. 
Hare. 
Eabbit. 
Cat. 
Hysena. 
Eat. 
Elephant. 
Leopard. 
Ehinoceros. 
Giraffe. 
Lion. 
Tiger. 
Hedgehog. 
Mouse. 
Hippopotamus. 
Panther. 
Amongst the birds there are wanting in America, bird of 
paradise, bustard, emu, lyre bird, peacock, ostrich, pheasant, 
starling, vulture and gallus, or common barn-door fowl, and 
of reptiles, there are no vipers, land-lizards, gavials or 
chameleons. 
Some of these Old World animals have, however, analogues 
which, if not specifically allied, have a generic or family 
relationship. Thus, the puma represents the lions and tigers ; 
the bighorn, the sheep ; the bison, the oxen ; the llama, the 
camels ; the peccary, the swine ; the rhea, the ostriches 
and emus ; and the condor of the Andes, the vulture of the 
Pyrenees. 
On the other hand, there are genera indigenous to America, 
which have no living representatives in the eastern hemisphere. 
The sloths, the armadillos and the ant-eaters of South America, 
are quite absent from the Old World, these animals constituting 
three families also that are confined to the western continent. 
A most noteworthy zoogeographical feature is the restriction of 
the humming-birds to America. These exquisitely beautiful 
little birds, of which no less than 390 species have been 
described, constitute the family Trochilidie, and not one species 
of this family is found in any other part of the world. 
When the fauna of America is more critically examined and 
compared with the fauna of the eastern hemisphere, many 
important and highly interesting differences are discovered. 
