New Guinea and New Ireland are still supposed, as it was
long'ago imagined by Forster, to be the shutth whence the
isles of the southern ocean derived all the mammifers which
they possess. These, as it is well known, are a very small
number. Even New Zealand has no native quadruped, except
the seal. The roussette keraudren has spread from the
Philippines over the Marian isles as far as Oualan, but is unknown
beyond that island. In the Sanclwich isles there is a
small crepuscular bat. Two species of rat, the hog, the dog,
and gallinacious fowls are very extensively dispersed. Rats
exist almost everywhere, where men are or havU'been, and
in Oualan there is a inus dbcumanus or surmulot which
multiplies in the neighourhood of the village of Lulb. The
hog termed booaa at the Society isles, is only fbtuid' in the
southern groupes of the ocean, and is wanting in the Marian
isles. The breed is everywhere that which is termed Siamese;
it exists at Port Praslin in New Ireland, and in New
Guinea. The dogs termed ouri, of which the flesh is eaten
at feasts, are likewise wanting in some of the islands. The
Papuas of New Guinea keep them half domesticated. The
natives of New Ireland" term them Jcoull: the bfee'd'Us ‘6f
small size, with pointed muzzle and upright ears. M. Lesson
says, “ They appeared to us to resemble in'every respect
the breed of dogs which follow the miserable natives of New
Holland. They eat whatever they can find; and chiefly feed
on crabs which they catch on the reefs of the sea-snore.
The natives of New Ireland consider them delicate's^ood.”
The dogs of New Caledonia are, according, to the same writer,
precisely similar. They appear to have followed the Papua
tribes, for they are found at the Fiji islands, but are wanting
a little further among the people of the Tonga isles who are
of a different race, as well as at Oualan and the Caroline, and
Marian islands, towards' the north. At Easter island, the
most remotely situated in the great southern ocean, there
are no domestic animals except fowls and rats; even these
last are eaten by the natives.*
* I have collected these particulars from the various narratives of voyages to
the southern ocean: many of them from the scientific works of Forster and Lesson.
S e c t io n V I I .— Distribution o f the Species comprised in the
most numerous families o f Quadrupeds.
The quadramanous tribe are strongly contrasted with
mankind in regard to: the. extent of their .dispersion or the
space whicluAhey inhabit on the earth. Although the form
and organization of/the simiæ are much more diversified than
those of the most distantly separated races of men, yet the
range off the whole monkey tribe is extremely limited, while
that of mankind is almost, universal. In the old, as well as
in the new. world, the simiæ, in their wild and natural state,
are nearly confined to the intertropical region, and of that
they inhabit but particular portions.. One species only, the
magot, is known toj* advance into Europe bto the twenty-
.seventh degree of north latitude, where it has become
naturalized, on the rock of Gibraltar, under a climate but
little different, from, that of the .opposite coast of Africa.
In ^general, the hottest regions, and particularly level countries
/covered wittr vast forests, are the favourite abodes
.•of the quadrumanous tribe. There are some : exceptions,
/however, »»to. this observation : a .»few species live» at the Cape
p f ,Go®df Hope, and some in P a ra g u a y a n both of which
/countries they reach towards the.thirty-fifth degree, or even
the thirtyreight of Couth latitude.*
The different genera belonging to the monkey tribe are
distributed in the old world as follows :—jOf the orangs off
ian^te#|pmorphous apes, the troglodytes or, chimpanzés are
in Africa, the orang-outan or pongoyin Sumatra and Borneo.
The gibbons, or long-armed apes, are in the Sunda isles
and the Malayan peninsula. The tribe of guénons inhabit
Afrioa exclusively, viz. the Cape of Good Hope, the coasts of
Loango and of Guinea ; there are none of them irr Iiidia. The
semnopitheci are only in India, as likewise are the macapcqsi
Of the two known species of magot, one is an African and
the other an Indian . race. The cynocephali arë found in
Africa, affthe Cape, and lîkéwisë in Arabia; the mandrills,
* Lesson, Hist. iNat. des Maiumifer.es, tpm Les Singes.