Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Game Animals of Africa
The work in its present state can only be regarded as a preliminary attempt to give something like a complete account of. The game-fauna of the African continent; and it is certain that many alterations and, it is hoped, many additions - will have to be made in future editions.
Two points in connection with the African continent demand brief mention firstly, its enormous area, about four times that of India and, secondly, the marked distinction of the fauna of Africa north of the Sahara, or north of the tropic of Cancer, from that of all the vast region to the southward of the same. Northern Africa is, in fact, so far as its animals are concerned, a part of Europe. We have, for instance, in this area such groups as deer, sheep, goats, and bears, which are conspicuous by their absence from the rest of the continent, except so far as sheep and goats have penetrated some distance into the highlands of the north-eastern corner. On the other hand, what may be called the characteristic African animals are to a great extent wanting from the tract north of the Sahara.
Africa south of the tropic of Cancer is conveniently called Ethiopian Africa, or simply Ethiopia. The local differences in the Ethiopian fauna are chiefly dependent upon what naturalists call station. One of the most marked of these local faunas is that of the great equatorial forest-zone. The Cape fauna likewise presented many peculiarities in the days of its prime; while the fauna of East Africa shows a certain approximation to that of India.
Except that a few occur in Syria and Arabia, the antelopes and most of the other herbivorous big game animals of Ethiopian Africa belong to types unknown elsewhere. Exclusive of the gazelles, the antelopes, for instance, are generically distinct from those of other lands; while giraffes, okapi, hippopotamuses, wart-hogs, bush-pigs, forest-hogs, and ant-bears are unknown elsewhere at the present day.
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