Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/350

 

CHAPTER XVI

the luxuriance of the vegetation, which might be supposed to afford sustenance, directly or indirectly, to every kind of animal life, the Amazon valley is remarkably deficient in large animals, and of Mammalia generally has a smaller number both of species and individuals, than any other part of the world of equal extent, except Australia. Three small species of deer, which occur but rarely, are the only representatives of the vast herds of countless species of deer and antelopes and buffaloes which swarm in Africa and Asia, and of the wild sheep and goats of Europe and North America. The tapir alone takes the place of the elephants and rhinoceroses of the Old World. Two or three species of large "Felidæ", and two wild hogs, with the capybará and páca, comprise almost all its large game; and these are all thinly scattered over a great extent of country, and never occur in such large numbers as do the animals representing them in other parts of the world.

Those singular creatures, the sloths, the armadilloes, and the ant-anters, are very generally distributed, but only occur singly and sparingly. The small agoutis are perhaps rather more plentiful; but almost the only animals found in any numbers are the monkeys, which are abundant, both in species and individuals, and are the only mammalia that give some degree of life to these trackless forests, which seem peculiarly fitted for their development and increase.

I met with twenty-one species of these animals, some of which I had no opportunity of examining. Several others exist; but it is necessary to reside for some years in each