It is there, too, that the elephant, the hippopotamus, and the rhinoceros, the largest of terrestrial quadrupeds, roam the plain, or wander in the dense forest; there are the birds conspicuous for the gorgeous splendour of their metallic colours, and the insects for their singular forms, their lovely painting, or dazzling effulgence. Receding from the inter-tropics, we find vegetation on a less magnificent scale; the trees are for the most part deciduous, various species of corn are cultivated, the meadows are clothed with grass, and the vine and the olive flourish. Beautiful are the flowers, richly tinted are the insects; some few birds are splendid, but there are no sun birds, no humming birds, no birds of paradise. Receding further, we come to the extreme limits of the vine, and pass from temperate to colder latitudes, latitudes in which pines and firs form woods and forests, in which a scanty flora greets a tardy sun, in which the animals are covered with fur, increasing in thickness on the approach of winter. Beyond this territory the arctic regions open upon us. Yet even here vegetable and animal life meet us; but the species are few in number: the reindeer, the leming, the white hare, the musk ox, the polar bear, and arctic fox, are among the most remarkable. The birds are chiefly piscivorous, and all are migratory, passing southwards on the approach of winter. Coarse herbage, lichens, and mosses, vegetate during the fleeting summer, and lie buried beneath the snow during the winter. Yet are these animals and plants as well adapted for their dreary realms of snow and ice, as are the animals and plants of the rich inter-tropics for their luxuriant region. Take the elephant, the hippopotamus, the bird of paradise, or the glittering boa constrictor to Greenland, and they perish; take thither the graceful palm, palmetto, or pandanus, and they cease even to struggle for life. On the contrary, transport the polar bear and the reindeer to the torrid plains of the inter-tropics, and their fate is sealed. The hardy plants, indeed, which endure the arctic regions, are, in many instances, at least identical with those that flourish in more temperate latitudes, but they are not to be found in the low sultry plains of the inter-tropics. They constitute the outskirts of northern vegetation.