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Show 96 DRIFTING OF QUADRUPEDS ON [Ch. VI. a hical distribution of the Mydaus meliceps, a kind ~f pole· gr ~ b' · J a This animal is ''confined exclusively to cat mha ttmg av · t · }1ich have an elevation of more than seven those moun ams w . thousan d 1J!e e t a b ove the level of the ocean : on these 1t occurs 1 · 1 ts The long-extended with the same regu anty as many p an • . . f: f J boundi'ng with conical pomts whiCh exceed sur ace o ava, a . l t u.s e1 e va t1' 0 n , a~ror·ds many places favourable for 1ts resort. w . d . tl e mountains the traveller scarcely fatls to On ascen mg 1es ' . . . . . meet 'th th' "nl'mal which from its pecuhantles, IS umver- Wl IS a ' ' • saI I y k nown t o the inhabitants of these eleva. ted tracts, while. to h f the plains it is as strange as an ammal from a foreign t ose o d' . I . I my visits to the mountainous 1stncts, um-country. n . . J! 1 t 'th it and as far as the informatwn of the natives 1orm y me w1 , , . * , can be relied on, it is found on all the mountams . . Now, ifwe were asked to conjecture how the Mydaus~rr1ved at the elevated regions of each of these isolated mountams, we h ld say that before the isle was peopled by man) by whom s ou . 11 h their numbers are now thinned, they may occas10n~ y a:e 1 · }' d 0 mu t1p 1e s as to be forced to collect together and m. igrate. ; m 1 · h tw'1w nc case, no thstandino- the slowness of their motions, o . some 1J! ew wou ld succeed in reachinoo- another mountam, some twenty, or even, perhaps, fifty miles distant: for although the climate of the hot intervening plains would be unfavourable to them, they might support it for a time, and wo~ld find there abundance of insects on which they feed. Volcamc ~ruptions, which at different times have covered the summ1ts of some of these lofty cones with steril sand and ashes, may have occasionally contributed to force on these migrations. The power of the terrestrial mammalia 'to cross the sea. is very limited, and we have already stated that the same spectes is scarcely ever common to districts widely separated by the ocean. If there be some exceptions to this rule they generally admit of explanation, for there are natural means whereby ~ome animals may be floated across the water, and the sea sometimes wears a passage through a nee k of 1a n d , 1e av·m g individuals • Zoological Researches in Java, No.2. Ch. VI.] ICE-FLOES AND FLOATING ISLANDS. 97 of a species on each side of the new channel. Polar bears are known to have been frequently drifted on the ice from Greenland to Iceland ; they can also swim to considerable distances, for Captain Parry, on the return of his ships through Barrow's Strait, met with a bear swimming in the water. about midway between the shores, which were about forty miles apart, and where no ice was in sight*· ''Near the east coast of Green~ land/' Qbserves Scoresby, " they have been seen on the icc in such quantities, that they were compared to flocks of sheep on a common-and they are often found on field-ice, above two hundred miles from the shore t." Wolves, in the arctic regions, often venture upon the ice ncar the shore, for the purpose of preying upon young seals which they surprise when asleep. When these ice-floes get detached, the wolves are often carried out to sea, and though some may be drifted to islands or continents, the greater part of them perish, and have been often heard in this situation howling dreadfully, as they die by famine!· During the short summer which visits Melville Island, various plants push forth their leaves and flowers the moment the snow is off the ground, and form a carpet spangled with the most lively colours. These secluded spots are reached annually by herds of musk-oxen and rein-deer, which travel im~ense distances over dreary and desolate regions, to graze undisturbed on these luxuriant pastures §. The rein- deer often pass along in the same manner, by the chain of the Aleutian Islands, from Behring's Straits to Kamtschatka, subsisting o~ t?e moss fo~nd in these islands during their passage II· Wtthm the tropics there are no ice-floes; but, as if to compensate for that m~de of transportation, there are floating isles of matted trees, winch are often borne along through considerable spaces. '.rhese are sometimes seen sailing at the distance of fifty or one hundred miles from the mouth of the Vo1 .. II. "' Append. to Parry's Second Voyage, years 1819-20. t Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 518. t Turton, in a note to Goldsmith's Nat. IIi st., vol. iii. p. 43. § Supplement to Parry's First Voyage of Disc., p. 189. II Godman's Amel'ican Nat. Ilist., vol. i. p. 22. H |