The boa constrictor is not only known in Ceylon, but in Java; and yet it is not amphibious. By what means could this animal find its way to islands so distant? This is the more surprising, when we consider that the rattlesnake of America is unknown in the same latitudes in other countries: where the vapours they emit and spread around them, and which affect animals in such a curious manner, would, in those climates, equally assist them in their plans of subsistence. Among the Hottentots, too, there is a snake, belted with black, red, and yellow colours, which, when seen in the night, becomes luminous and looks like fire. This animal would embellish the midnight landscapes of Austral Asia; and yet it is not there to be found.

That crocodiles should be found to exist in Egypt, in America, in Java, and many parts of the East, may be accounted for, since they are amphibious; but why is the shawl goat, so useful and so numerous north of the Himaylah mountains, known in no other country than in Tartary? Near the lake of Manasanawara they are used by the natives as beasts of burden. When laden, they will climb the most difficult places without hesitation; but they are timid, when descending steep precipices; they are short-legged, and of a compact form; and even over abrupt roads will travel five cosa a day. This animal would be exceedingly useful in other mountainous countries, as well as in those, behind the empire of Nepaul b.

In the island of Pangesani are thick forests of palms, in which are a great number of squirrels and in Nutmeg Island are a vast multitude of glow-worms, and spiders of different forms and colours. Here, too, are large evergreens, the roots of which are buried in calcareous stones; several species of

a Vid, Moorcroft's Journey in Little Thibet.-Asiat. Researches, vol. xii. b It has been lately introduced into France.

• D'Entrecasteux's Voyage in Search of La Pérouse, vol. ii. p. 316.

the fig-tree; the beautiful Barringtonia speciosa; mosses; ferns; and many parasitical plants:-uniting as it were, by its productions, Europe to Asia; and Africa to America.

a

On the coast of California are found the most beautiful univalve shells in the world. Their lustre is even superior to mother of pearl; appearing through a transparent varnish of livid blue, like lapis-lazuli. There are, also, fine shells found on the Papua and Molucca Islands. Off the coast of New Guinea some are found 258 pounds in weight; and on that of Celebes are cockles so large, that they afford an ample meal for the satisfaction of seven or eight men. Thus, though poisonous and destructive animals and plants find means to emigrate to countries, thousands of miles apart, shells and cockles like those, we have alluded to, beautiful and useful as they are, are unknown to islands even in their own immediate neighbourhoods.

Though Tobago has the vegetable productions of Trinidad, it has not all its birds or quadrupeds; and what is still more curious, there are several birds of the American continent in Tobago, unknown in Trinidad, which is many leagues nearer the continent: and though many of those birds have been carried to Trinidad, none have multiplied.

That pacos and lamas should not be found north of the Line, though the Cordilleras of the north have the same climate and temperature as those of the south, is not to be wondered at, since the herbage, on which they feed, is nowhere to be found north of the Line. The wonder would be, that the same herbage is not found in the same description of climate, did we not reflect, that though the atmosphere may have the

Vid. Dampier, vol. iii. part iii. p. 106. Vol. i. p. 449.

The Falkland Islands, for instance, were originally peopled with Antarctic foxes, by their being accidentally conveyed thither, from the extreme coast of South America, on islands of ice, broken from the mainland, and driven thither by the winds and currents.

Called Yeho and Xarava.-Present State of Peru, 4to. 1805. p. 50.

same temperature, the soils of the two regions may be, and are, doubtless, of a very different quality.

On the coast of Guinea, asses a are found much larger than horses. In no other country are they so. The Dongola horses, on the same continent, are, on the contrary, the most perfect in the world; being beautiful and symmetrical in their parts; nervous and elastic in their movements; and docile and affectionate in their manners. One of these horses was sold, in 1816, at Grand Cairo, for a sum equivalent to a thousand pounds.

The coast of Guinea is remarkable for its animals: among which are porcupines, wild boars, jackals, tigers, elephants, crocodiles, large snakes, and ants of a prodigious size. There were, also, at one time, not less than 100,000 apes of different species. Now, in the midst of all these powerful enemies, it is natural to suppose, that the most helpless of all animals could have no power of security or existence; and yet the Sloth has not only the power of living, but of propagating. On some parts of this coast, too, Nature seems to have inverted her plan, by making men woolly and sheep hairy. On the Tartarian side of the Himaylah range she has, also, clothed the cow with an undercoat of wool or fur, as fine and as soft as that of beavers.

The camelopard is not seen out of Africa: neither is the humming bird witnessed out of America; though some report it is to be seen in Java. Why has Nature denied these beautiful animals to other countries of the same latitude?

In one of the Philippine islands are an incredible number of bats; so large that their wings extend from six to seven feet from tip to tip. In the evening, as soon as the sun has set, vast numbers of them collect like bees, and direct their course to Mindanao. They return regularly every morning.

Bosman, p. 228. ed. 1721.

b In Nubia.

Since this was written Mr. Waterton has given a very different character of this animal. According to his account, its name appears a complete misnomer.

As these bats are seen in few other places, we should almost be tempted to suppose, that Nature had resolved upon signalizing these islands with some of the most curious of her caprices; as she has, by the formation of so many unique animals, on the continent of New Holland.

The first parrot, ever seen in Europe, was brought from Ceylon by Alexander's admiral, Onesicritus. The Romans afterwards obtained them from an island of the Nile; and in the time of the earlier emperors, they were kept in cages of shells, ivory, and silver. The ash-coloured parrot, now so common in Jamaica, and parts of America, went originally from Guinea. The blue-headed parrakeet, which sleeps with its head downwards, was carried from Sumatra and Malacca to the Philippine islands; but it would be impossible to state, in what manner it went to Otaheite. The slave ships of Senegal, however, introduced the rose-ringed species into Guadaloupe, Martinico, and St. Domingo. Lories, wherever they are found, were originally deported from New Guinea, or the Moluccas. The noira lory, called for its beauty" the brilliant," was with great difficulty made to sustain a voyage from Java to Amsterdam; the white-headed Amazon, so common in Mexico, will not naturalize even in Guinea; the maipouri,―occupying the chain between parrakeets and popinjays, rejects every kind of food, when caught; and will consent to try no climate but its own.

It was observed by Barentz, when he and his companions passed the winter on the western side of Ice-haven, that when the sun left them the bears left them too; and were succeeded by wild foxes; and that when the sun reappeared, the foxes fled, and the bears returned.

The Scythian ANTELOPE migrates, every autumn, from the northern to the southern deserts; and returns in the spring. The springer antelope migrates in small herds, from the interior of Africa to the neighbourhood of the Cape. There they remain for about two months: when they return in bodies

to the amount of many thousands. When rain has not fallen for two or three years, they travel through Caffraria, and destroy the chief of the vegetation: but lions, hyænas, and panthers, destroy them in return a.

Lapland MARMOTS travel, once or twice in twenty years, from the mountainous parts of Lapland and Norway, in large bodies; destroying all the grain and vegetables in their way; and, being deterred neither by water nor by fire, travel with their young either in their mouths, or upon their backs, till ruin overtakes them. None ever return ;-for they are either drowned, killed by the inhabitants of the districts, through which they migrate, or eaten by foxes, lynxes, ermines, and other animals. Wild asses, also, collect in autumn to the east and north of the lake of Aral, in thousands; and thence effect a gradual retreat into the northern parts of Persia and India.

Monkeys, apes, elephants, camels, and tigers, are not able, generally, to propagate out of their natural latitudes; nor have the Mamelukes of the Caucasus power to propagate in Egypt; nor will Egyptian plants propagate in Tartary. In hot countries, we are told, animals are more wild, more dreadful, bolder, and more ferocious, than in temperate ones yet in America, Nature, under the same sun, seems to have relaxed from the severity of this discipline. Remarkable for the majesty of its vegetable forms, the New World not only presents to an European a new climate, but new flowers and plants; new fossils, shells, and fishes; and new reptiles, insects, and zoophytes. It exhibits, also, in the southern latitudes, not only new birds and quadrupeds, but a

a In 1822, a pair of Wapati, a nondescript species of elk, were discovered in the interior of North America, and were exhibited in London in the latter part of that year. Their size was that of a small horse. They were very gentle, received food even from visiters, and were, at that time, breaking in for the saddle and harness. The Indians of the Upper Missouri domesticate them, and they draw sledges at the rate of twenty miles an hour; and their flesh is said to be delicious venison.