Richard Lydekker

“ That the fauna of the ocean, apart from the influence of temperature, would be much more uniform, and therefore less susceptible of being divided into zoological provinces, or regions, will be apparent from a glance at the map of the world on Mercator's projection, in which the fact that the three great oceans the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian are in free communication with one another in the southern hemisphere is clearly brought out. ”

“ Relieved from its load it does not, like other animals, seek the shade, even when that is to be found, but prefers to kneel beside its burden in the broad glare of the sun, seeming to luxuriate in the burning sand. ”

“ In habits the fox is to a great extent solitary, and its home is usually a burrow, which may be excavated by its own labour, but is more often the usurped or deserted tenement of a badger or a rabbit. Foxes will, however, often take up their residence in woods, or even in water-meadows with large tussocks of grass, remaining concealed during the day and issuing forth on marauding expeditions at night. Rabbits, hares, domesticated poultry, game-birds, and, when these run short, rats, mice and even insects, form the chief diet of the fox. ”

“ GALAGO, the Senegal name of the long-tailed African representatives of the lemur-like Primates, which has been adopted as their technical designation. Till recently the galagos have been included in the family Lemuridae; but this is restricted to the lemurs of Madagascar, and they are now classed with the lorises and pottos in the family Nycticebidae, of which they form the section Galaginae, characterized by the great elongation of the upper portion of the feet (tarsus) and the power of folding the large ears. ”

“ In the main, mammals and other nonvolant terrestrial animals are debarred from crossing anything more than comparatively narrow channels of the sea, while even these and the larger rivers form a more or less effectual barrier to the dispersal of the great majority of the species. Hence it results that oceanic islands are usually devoid of such forms of life; while it may be laid down, as a general rule, that the existence of nearly allied types of terrestrial animals in countries now separated by stretches of sea implies a former land-connexion between them. ”

“ The individual teeth are so large, and the processes of growth and destruction by wear take place so slowly, that not more than one, or portions of two, teeth are ever in place and in use on each side of each jaw at one time, and the whole series of changes coincides with the usual duration of the animal's life. On the other hand, the earlier representations of the proboscidean series referred to below have the whole of the cheek-teeth in place and use at one time, and the milk-molars vertically displaced by premolars in the ordinary fashion. ”

“ A moment's reflection will show the absurdity of such a supposition; for no surface-dwelling animal could possibly support the enormous pressure existing at great depths, which would crush in the body-cavities. Evidence of this is afforded by the fact that when fishes are brought to the surface from great depths their bodies are practically broken to pieces by the removal of the normal pressure, while their scales start from the skin and the eyes from their sockets. The absolute darkness prevailing at great depths would be another bar to pelagic animals descending to the ocean abysses. ”

“ The thumb is more human in its proportions in the chimpanzee than in any other of the higher apes. As compared with the length of the hand, it is most man-like in the lowest American monkeys, such as Chrysothrix and Hapale. In spite of greater relative length it may, however, little merit the name of thumb, as it is but slightly opposable to the other digits in any of the American monkeys, and is not at all so in the Hapalidae. The “great toe” is never rudimentary and, except in man, in place of being the longest digit of the foot, is constantly the shortest. ”

“ On the North American side of the Atlantic the fox reappears. With such an enormous geographical range the species must of necessity present itself under a considerable number of local phases, differing from one another to a greater or less degree in the matters of size and colouring. By some naturalists many of these local forms are regarded as specifically distinct, but it seems better and simpler to class them all as local phases or races of a single species primarily characterized by the white tip to the tail and the black or dark-brown hind surface of the ear. ”

“ Numerous genera are confined to the Indo-Pacific region. The Atlantic coasts have few peculiar genera of importance, while the west coast of America has hardly any, the difference of its fauna from that of the Atlantic on the one side and the Pacific on the other being chiefly specific. It is stated that while there is not a single species common to the east and west coasts of tropical South America, the corresponding coasts of North America have a large number in common, while others are so closely representative as to be almost identical. ”

“ They live either among bushes or in trees, and make a neat nest for the reception of their young, which are born blind. The species inhabiting cold climates construct a winter nest in which they hibernate, waking up at times to feed on an accumulated store of nuts and other food. Before retiring they become very fat, and at such times the edible dormouse is a favourite article of diet on the Continent. At the beginning of the cold season the common dormouse retires to its nest, and curling itself up in a ball, becomes dormant. ”

“ The mouth is divided into two cavities communicating by a narrow orifice, the anterior one containing the incisors and the posterior the molars, the hairy skin of the face being continued inwards behind the incisors. This evidently prevents substances not intended for food getting into the mouth, as when the animal is engaged in gnawing through an obstacle. In hares and pacas the inside of the cheeks is hairy; and in some species, pouched rats and hamsters, there are large internal cheek-pouches lined with hair, which open near the angles of the mouth and extend backwards behind the ears. ”

“ Although the English squirrel is a beautiful little animal, it is surpassed by many of the tropical members of the group, and especially by those of the Malay countries, where nearly all the species are brilliantly marked, and many are ornamented with variously coloured longitudinal stripes along their bodies. Every one who has visited India is familiar with the pretty little striped palm-squirrel, which is to a considerable extent a partially domesticated animal, or, rather, an animal which has taken to quarter itself in the immediate neighbourhood of human habitations. ”

“ The discovery in the Oligocene Tertiary deposits of Dakota of the remains of a species of hedgehog is a fact of great interest, for the hedgehog-tribe (Erinaceidae) is at the present day an exclusively Old World group. The discovery of the fossil American species, which has been made the type of a new genus under the name of Protherix, serves to strengthen the view that the northern countries of the Western and Eastern hemispheres form a single zoological region ”

“ Turning to its existing mammalian fauna, Ethiopia possesses a number of peculiar family or generic groups, and is also nearly equally well characterized by the absence of others. As remarked by Wallace, one of its characteristics is the great number of species of large size. Among the Primates, it is the home of the typical group of the Negroid branch of the human species, whose northern limits coincide approximately with the boundary of the region itself, being replaced in northern Africa by races of the Caucasian stock. ”

“ The blue eyes and the white coat of the kitten indicate that the Siamese breed is a semi-albino, which when adult tends towards melanism, such a combination of characters being apparently unknown in any other animal. If the frequent presence of a kink in the tail be an inherent feature, the breed is evidently related to the other kink-tailed Malay cats which, as already stated, have a cry differing from that of European cats. Should this be so, then if the ordinary Malay cats are the descendants of the jungle-cat, we shall have to assign the same ancestry to the Siamese breed. ”

“ All the species resemble one another in the armour of spines covering the upper surface and sides of the body; and all possess the power of rolling themselves up into the form of a ball protected on all sides by these spines, the skin of the back being brought downwards and inwards over the head and tail so as to include the limbs by the action of special muscles. ”

“ The effect of the light falling upon them is to produce along the midrib of each a number of short white streaks of light, which contrast most strongly with the shadows cast by the leaves themselves, and with the general twilight gloom of the forest. ”

“ On the other hand, the thick layer of fallen leaves on the ground, and the bulk of the stems of the forest trees are bluish-brown and russet, thus closely resembling the decaying leaves in an European forest after heavy rain; while the whole effect is precisely similar to that produced by the russet head and body and the striped thighs and limbs of the okapi. The long and mobile muzzle of the okapi appears to be adapted for feeding on the low forest underwood and the swamp-vegetation. The small size of the horns of the males is probably also an adaptation to life in thick underwood. ”

“ A third species, from the American coast of the North Pacific, has been described under the name of Phocaena vomerina, and another from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata as P. spinipennis. Nearly allied is Neophocaena phocaenoides, a small species from the Indian Ocean and Japan, with teeth of the same form as those of the porpoise, but fewer in number (eighteen to twenty on each side) , of larger size, and more distinctly notched or lobed on the free edge. It is distinguished from the common porpoise externally by its black hue and the absence of a dorsal fin. ”

“ HEDGEHOG, or Urchin, a member of the mammalian order Insectivora, remarkable for its dentition, its armature of spines and its short tail. The upper jaw is longer than the lower, the snout is long and flexible, with the nostrils narrow, and the claws are long but weak. The animal is about 10 in. long, its eyes are small, and the lower surface covered with hairs of the ordinary character. The brain is remarkable for its low development, the cerebral hemispheres being small, and marked with but one groove, and that a shallow one, on each side. ”

“ The native idea, which may be true, is that the shorter period occurs in the case of female and the longer in that of male calves. In India elephants seldom breed in captivity, though they do so more frequently in Burma and Siam; the domesticated stock is therefore replenished by fresh captures. Occasionally two calves are produced at a birth, although the normal number is one. Calves suckle with their mouths and not with their trunks. Unlike the African species, the Indian elephant charges with its trunk curled up, and consequently in silence. ”

“ The ankle, or tarsus, consists of the same seven bones as in man, and these bones are so arranged, or bound together by ligaments, as to form a transverse and an antero-posterior arch. In no ape or monkey, however, do the lower ends of the inner metatarsals form the anterior point of support of the antero-posterior arch, as in man. The calcaneum, except in the gorilla, is shorter compared with the spine than in man. The phalanges of the foot are the same in number as in man, except that the great toe of the orang-utan has often but one. ”

“ The most characteristic dental feature is, however, the assumption of the form and function of a canine by the first lower premolar; the lower canine being incisor-like. The tail is very long; and the feet have five functional toes, with complete but short metacarpals or metatarsals. In the Miocene Agriochoerus, which typifies a second sub-family (Agriochoerinae) , there is no gland-pit in the skull, of which the orbit is open behind; while the upper incisors are wanting in the adult and the terminal toe-bones are claw-like rather than of the hoofed type. ”

“ In Southern India they delight in hill-forest, where the undergrowth is largely formed of bamboo, the tender shoots of which form a favourite delicacy; but during the rains they venture out to feed on the open grass tracts. ”

“ In the great ungulate order the African elephant is widely sundered from its Asiatic cousin, as are the two species of rhinoceros from their representatives in the Oriental region; indeed each group is sub-generically distinct. The hyraxes, forming the suborder Hyracoidea, are, with the exception of a single outlying Syrian species, confined to Ethiopia. Zebras and true wild asses are likewise peculiar to the region. More remarkable is the extraordinary number of peculiar genera of antelopes, a few of which range, however, into North Africa, Syria and Arabia ”

“ They live mostly upon fruits, leaves and blossoms, although a few feed habitually upon insects, and all relish, in confinement, an occasional bird or other small animal. Several possess flying-membranes stretched between their fore and hind limbs, by the help of which they can make long and sustained leaps through the air, like flying-squirrels, but the possession of these flying-membranes does not seem to be any indication of special affinity, the characters of the skull and teeth sharply dividing the flying forms and uniting them with other species of the non-flying groups. ”

“ Turning to the tailless or so-called Manx cats, in which the tail should be represented merely by a tuft of hair without any remnant of bone, it seems that the strain is to be met with in many parts of Russia, and there is a very general opinion that it originally came from Japan or some other far eastern country. Throughout Japan, China, Siam, and the Malay countries, normal long-tailed cats are indeed seldom seen. Instead of these are cats with more or less abbreviated tails, showing in greater or less degree a decided kink or bend near the tip. ”

“ It may be mentioned that the Bactrian camel, which is a shorter-legged and more ponderous animal than the Arabian species, grows an enormously long and thick winter coat, which is shed in blanket-like masses in spring. The Arabian camel, which is used not only in the country from which it takes its name, but also in North Africa and India, and has been introduced into Australia and North America, is known only as a domesticated animal. ”

“ The typical groups constituting the subgenus (or genus) Vulpes, is represented by numerous species and races spread over the Old World and North America. Foremost among these is the European fox (C. vulpes—otherwise Vulpes alopex, or V. vulpes) , represented in the Himalaya by the variety C. v. montanus and in North Africa by C. v. niloticus, while the North American C. pennsylvanicus or fulvus, can scarcely be regarded as more than a local race. On the other hand, the Asiatic C. bengalensis and C. corsac, and the North American C. velox (kit-fox) are smaller and perfectly distinct species. ”

“ We can hope, therefore, to understand and explain the present distribution of terrestrial animal life only by taking into account what geology teaches us as to past changes in the configuration of the land-masses of the globe, accompanied by investigations into the past history of animals themselves, as revealed by their fossil remains. ”