Arizona republican., 1892-09-11
NO BIG ANIMALS.
WHAT VAST AREAS OF LAND IN
 TORRID COUNTRIES LACK.

Some Districts in Which There Are No
 Wild Animals of Considerable Size.
 ago Called n "Gameless Country"
 A Russian naturalist. Professor Ma clay, who passed several years in the in- terior of Papua, describes the highland district of the great island as a region as remarkable for it's scenery and pro- ductiveness as for its salubrious crimate "a perpetual May in the terrace lands, with March and April plateaus here and there in the highest mountains. The area of the whole island exceeds that of Texas, but its population hardly aggregates million, nine-tenths of the aborigines being lowland settlers, black idlers gorged with the yam roots and wild hog steaks of the coast plain. The upiands, too, abound with game and fish, and the only conceivable reason why the natives should limit their hunting grounds to the sweltering coast jungles is their preference for a climate that enables them to dispense with dry goods the year round.
 In the Torres range there are summits towering to the height of II 900 feet, but the close proximity of the equator has covered the highlands with luxuriant vegetation. Snow is hardly ever seen, but chill nights-light frost even-occur now and then, and the frizzle haired coast dwellers avoid the mountains as the Indios Mansos of the Mexican low lands avoid the tierra fria. Papua is paradise of birds, but the kingdom of mammals is represented only by few marsupials (ground kangaroos, tree kangaroos and opossums), besides the wild hogs of the river jungles.
 A much stranger country in regard to the absence of wild animals is found in the near neighborhood of our own con- tinent. The West Indian archipelago, with it's four magnificent islands and countless islets, has been justly termed the 'gameless country" region of more than hundred thousand square miles, monopolized almost entirely by birds and insects (even reptiles being scarce), as If the archipelago had been somehow overlooked on the last two days of creation, and left to be settled by such creatures as could reach its coasts swimming or flying. There are forests teeming with spontaneous fruit, but no monkeys, no wild hogs, no bears or raccoons. The larger carnivora are not represented by single species.
 No opumas or jaguars (though both are found on the coasts of the neighboring mainland), no partners, lynx or wildcat. Foxes, wolves and jackals. too, are con- spicuous by their absence. The caves of the limestone Sierra would seem to be admirably adapted to marmots and woodchucks, but they are tenanted only by bats. On the fine highland pastures and, strange to say, not even rabbits. Sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, cows, hogs and even dogs were introduced after the Spanish conquest, and the only domestic mammal kept by the natives at the time of discovery was 6 small kind of wolf prairie wolD imported from Mexico, and few species of squir- rels. which the Cubans fattened for culinary purposes without knowing any thing about a classic precedent-the gliraria (rat kennels) of the ancient Romans, who preferred dormouse on toast to the best Syrian pheasant pies.
 Dogs and cats were unknown, and that lack of household pets seems to have driven the aborigines to strange expedients, for in "Ogilvy's Voyages" there is an account of San Domingo cacique who kept tame manatee that made its headquarters in an artificial pond and was so well tanned that "when called by it's name, Matoom, it would come out of the water and go directly to the cacique's house, where. being fed, it returned to the pond, accompanied by men and boys, who seemed to charm the manatee by their singing, and it often carried two children at time on its back. Being once, however, struck by pike in the hands of Spaniard it would never after come out of the water 1 if clothed man were near.
 Manatees have become rather scarce | on the coast of San Domingo, but are often seen near the Island of Pinos, | northwest of Cuba, where shoals of the strange creatures may be seen sporting about the reef like the sea lions below the Cliff House. Of all aquatic man. mals the manatee, however, can claim the championship in the art of lodging a sudden attack: a leveled harpoon is enough to make them plunge under 1 with mo you don't" snort, and then pop up again at unexpected times and places, waving their flippers in derision, and ready to disappear for good at the first suspicious motion.
 The luxury of the Dom1lican cacique was therefore not apt to be shared by many of his subjects. Puppies and kit. | teas were never seen in their cabins, and the largest land animal of the island was an overgrown rat. known as the hutia, and measuring about eighteen inches without the tail. Its caudal appendage is compromise between that of the true rat Gad the California gopher, whom il resembles in it's fondness for grain and in it's burrowing mania, one pair owning often as many as four different dens, more or less connected by subterranean tunnels.
 With the exception of that shy rodent, Cuba, San Domingo. Jamaica and Cunta Rica have no Land creaEureS deeervfng