FAUNM'
the largest of the provinces, it does not contain a remarkable number of
distinet native genera of mammals ; but one group that is much repre-
sented includes those hoofed animals of most use to man---the horse,
ass, 0x, camel, sheep, deer, goat, pig, etc. Most of these inhabit the
steppes, but the reindeer lives on the moss of the frigid tundras, and the
samel can find support on the few prickly plants and shrubs which grow
in the deserts. A one-humped and a two-humped species of camel
occur in Asia. The yak, which is used as a beast of burden in Tibet,
is a kind of 0x native to the central ranges.
The carnivorous, or flesh-eating, animals are represented by the
wolf, fox, polar and brown bears, lynx, and ounce—an animal distin-
guished from the leopard by its thick light fur. "The tiger, although a
typical inhabitant of the Oriental province, is also found in Persia,
Turkistan, and Northern China ; while the leopard occurs in South-West
Asia. There, too, the Kon is still found, though it is essentially an
Ethiopian animal, and is increasingly rare here. Some of these animals
are hunted on account of their skins, but many of the most valuable furs
are obtained from the squirrels, ermines, and beavers which inhabit the
northern forests,
No elephants are now native to this province, but the remains of a
gigantic species, known as the mammoth, have been found buried in
the swamps of £he tundras, and preserved by the ice. The 1vory obtained
{rom these remains has been an article of commerce for centuries, and is
still procured in small quantities.
The Oriental Province.—This is characterized by a particularly
rich and varied fauna, especially in the Malay Peninsula. It possesses
a large variety of monkeys and the orang-outang, a species of the anthro-
poid apes, so called from their resemblance to man. The chief car-
nivorous animals in this region are the tiger, leopard, hyena, and bear ;
other large native wild animals being the elephant, the tapir, and both
the one-horned and two-horned species of rhinoceros, _ The elephants
native to the Oriental province differ in some Trespects from those of the
Ethiopian— among others, in having no tusks, or tusks of smaller average
size, and thus they are less valuable as a source of ivory. They can,
however, be domesticated, and are largely used as beasts of burden. "The
tapir is confined in Asia to the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, and outside
this area occurs only in South America. Another animal which in Asia
is found only in the Malay Peninsula is the lemur, which in some respects