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* Unfortunately These Illustrations Can Not Be Presented In This ASCII Text.
- A. L., 1997.
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The abundance of food in this country, as compared with the south,
would lead one to suppose that animals here
Must attain a much greater size;
but actual measurement now confirms the impression made on my mind
by the mere sight of the animals, that those in the districts north of 20 Deg.
were smaller than the same races existing southward of that latitude.
The first time that Mr. Oswell and myself saw full-grown male elephants
on the River Zouga, they seemed no larger than the females (which are always
smaller than males) we had met on the Limpopo. There they attain
a height of upward of 12 feet. At the Zouga the height of one I measured
was 11 feet 4 inches, and in this district 9 feet 10 inches. There is,
however, an increase in the size of the tusks as we approach the equator.
Unfortunately, I never made measurements of other animals in the south;
but the appearance of the animals themselves in the north at once produced
the impression on my mind referred to as to their decrease in size.
When we first saw koodoos, they were so much smaller than those
we had been accustomed to in the south that we doubted whether they were not
a new kind of antelope; and the leche, seen nowhere south of 20 Deg.,
is succeeded by the poku as we go north. This is, in fact,
only a smaller species of that antelope, with a more reddish color.
A great difference in size prevails also among domestic animals;
but the influence of locality on them is not so well marked.
The cattle of the Batoka, for instance, are exceedingly small
and very beautiful, possessing generally great breadth between the eyes
and a very playful disposition. They are much smaller
than the aboriginal cattle in the south; but it must be added
that those of the Barotse valley, in the same latitudes as the Batoka,
are large. The breed may have come from the west, as the cattle
within the influence of the sea air, as at Little Fish Bay, Benguela, Ambriz,
and along that coast, are very large. Those found at Lake Ngami,
with large horns and standing six feet high, probably come
from the same quarter. The goats are also small, and domestic fowls
throughout this country are of a very small size, and even dogs,
except where the inhabitants have had an opportunity of improving the breed
by importation from the Portuguese. As the Barotse cattle
are an exception to this general rule, so are the Barotse dogs,
for they are large, savage-looking animals, though in reality very cowardly.
It is a little remarkable that a decrease in size should occur
where food is the most abundant; but tropical climates seem unfavorable for
the full development of either animals or man. It is not from want of care
in the breeding, for the natives always choose the larger and stronger males
for stock, and the same arrangement prevails in nature,
for it is only by overcoming their weaker rivals that the wild males
obtain possession of the herd.
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