1775- November. cafe they chance to efcape in the mean time, being made a prey to ravenous animals, or being drowned in crofting rivers. The tnus migratorius feu accedula of M. P a l l a s , is another inftance of this difpofition in animals to migrate. Of the migration of antilopes, efpecially of the fpring-boks, downwards to the Cape of Good Hope, I lhall have occaiion to make mention farther on. The more coniiderable peregrinations of locufts, indeed, will, perhaps, be of no avail, as examples in the cafes o f quadrupeds ; but thofe produced above are fufficient to make it probable, that elephants likewife are fubjedt to migrations, either from fome motive equally unknown with that of the lemings, or for certain reafons which offer, as it were, o f themfelves to our conjedtures i for inftance, a coniiderable increafe in the number o f thefe animals, their want of food, the in- conveniencies attending an unufually dry and hot feafon, their being molefted by mankind, or affrighted by the eruptions of volcanos and earthquakes in their native foiL I put the too great increafe o f the elephants in the firft place, on account of the almoft incredible number one fees at the Cape of Good Hope, as this animal is faid to live. well as the many centuries If moreover we aflume the hypothelis, that the fouth-eaft part of Alia, which is at prefent inhabited by a numerous and prolific race of men, viz. the Chinefe, had been as favourable to the increafe of elephants, more efpecially in the firft ages o f the world, which are fuppofed to have been the molt fertile in all the produdtions o f nature; it will naturally follow, that the numbers of thefe animals would,, fome time or other, other, have received fo great an augmentation, that the NjS S e*. fcarcity of food, and the mutual conflidts between different herds of elephants, muft have obliged fome of them to feek their fubfiftence elfewhere. Dry and hot fummers would naturally have increafed this deficiency of food for elephants, and accelerated their removal ; and at the fame time, for the fake of coolnefs, determined their courfe towards the north, and finally to Siberia. I am very ready to believe with natural philofo- phers, that this latter country was formerly not fb cold as it is at prefent; but cannot fuppofe it to have been by any means warm enough to harbour elephants, excepting indeed in fummer time, as it is well known, that our Lapland fummers, though Ihort, are yet extremely warm. Swarms o f elephants having thus, for one or more caufes, left their native habitations, and by degrees, or, perhaps, by a hafty and fudden removal, having arrived at a great diftance from it, in more fevere climates, and been there- overtaken by a cold autumn or winter, it would be no wonder, i f they had got out of their latitude, and fpread themfelves ftill farther into Siberia and the neighbouring countries; and there having periihed, have been buried at greater oriels depths, by earthquakes, by the falling in of fteep mountains, and by rivers: changing their courfe, and at. length have left to inquifitive. pofterity evident monuments of their migrations. A journey of about twenty-five or thirty degrees, or about one thoufand one hundred and forty miles, between China and Siberia,, cannot be, looked upon as long for elephants^
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