Physical geography. By Mary Somerville ...

452 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. CHAP. XXXII.
on the northern declivities of the Alps. The red deer does not ascend beyond 7000 feet, and the fallow-deer not more than 6000,
above the level of the sea: these two, however, descend to the
plains, the former never do. The bear, the lynx, and the stoat are
sometimes met with nearly at the limit of perpetual snow.
Some European animals are much circumscribed in their locality.
The Ichneumon is peculiar to Egypt; the mouflon is confined to
Corsica and Sardinia; a species of weasel and bat inhabit Sardinia
only; and Sicily has several peculiar bats and mice. There is only
one species of monkey in Europe, which lives on the rock of Gibraltar, and is supposed to have been brought from Africa. All the
indigenous British quadrupeds now existing, together with the extinct hymena, tiger, bear, and wolf, whose bones have been found in
caverns, are also found in the same state in Germany. Ireland was
probably separated by the Irish Channel from England before all
the animals had migrated to the latter; so that our squirrel, mole,
pole-cat, dormouse, and several smaller quadrupeds, never reached
the sister island. Mr. Owen has shown that the Britich horse, ass,
hog, the smaller wild ox, the goat, roe, beaver, and many small
rodents, are the same species with those which had co-existed with
the mammoth or fossil elephant, the great northern hippopotamus,
and two kinds of rhinoceros long extinct. So that a part only of
the modern tertiary fauna has perished, from whence he infers that
the cause of their destruction was not a violent universal catastrophe
from which none could escape. The Bos longifrons and the gigantic
Elk of the Irish bogs were probably co-existent with man.
ASIATIC QUADRUPEDS.
Asia has a greater number and a greater variety of wild animals
than any country, except America, and also a larger proportion of
those that are domesticated. Though civilized from the earliest
ages, the destruction of the animal creation has not been so great as
in Europe, owing to the inaccessible height of the mountains, the
extent of the plains and deserts, and, not least, to the impenetrable
forests and jungles, which afford them a safe retreat: 288 mammalia are Asiatic, of which 186 are common to it and other countries;
these, however, chiefly belong to the temperate zone.
Asia Ilinor is a district of transition from the fauna of Europe to
that of Asia. There the chamois, the bouquetin or ibex, the brown
bealr, the wolf, fox, hare, and others, are mingled with the hyaena,
the Angora goat, which bears a valuable fleece, the Argali or wild
sheep, the white squirrel; and even the Bengal royal Tiger is sometimes seen on Mount Ararat, and is not uncommon in Azerbijan and
the mountains in Persia.
Arabia is inhabited by the hyaena, panther, jackal, and wolf. Antelopes and monieys god found in Yemen. Most of these are also