Apart from the blood-sucking flies, there are many other interesting points about the insects of Europe, notably the wealth of beautiful and striking forms which occur round the Mediterranean basin. One of these, which extends northwards and westwards to northern France, is the curious Praying Mantis, a predatory insect belonging to the same order as the locust. It is an eastern form, which, like so many others, has taken advantage of the mild climate of western Europe to extend its range far beyond what we must regard as its natural limits. In France it shows the effect of relatively unfavourable conditions in the fact that it takes some nine to ten months for the eggs to hatch, whereas in hotter countries the process may take place in a few weeks.
In the warmer parts of Europe a very striking feature is the number and large size of the members of the locust and grasshopper families, whose shrill noise is so characteristic a sound in, for example, the pastures of Switzerland in summer-time. Among the locusts there occur, in many parts of Europe, those migratory forms which possess that power of periodic enormous multiplication which we have already noted so frequently among grassland animals. The migratory instinct only seems to develop when the numbers have greatly increased in any given locality, and in Europe generally the climate does not permit this to take place. It does, however, occur in the south-east of the Mediterranean basin, notably in the island of Cyprus, in Syria, and also in Northern Africa, where locusts sometimes reach the dimensions of a plague.
We may add to this account of land animals a few details on the land mammals of North America. The great point of contrast here is that Europe, from the beginning of the historic period, has always been a relatively well-peopled region, while in America, prior to the advent of the white man, the population was scanty. There was thus far more room in North America than in Europe for great flocks of large mammals. Thus the plains and prairies carried great herds of bison, while to the north there were other herds of reindeer, which were never tamed by the inhabitants of North America as they were in the Old World by the Lapps and others. The musk-ox is another interesting animal found in the north of America. It once also lived in Europe, but died out long ago. Just as the coniferous forest and tundra in Asia produce many small fur-bearing animals, so do the forest and tundra of North America. Deer are present as in the Old World, though they are of different types, and there is a curious animal known as the prong-buck which is peculiar. Wild sheep occur as they do in Europe, but no wild horse nor ass roams the plains of America as they roam to-day the wastes of Asia. Without going into further detail, we may say generally that as regards wild animals, no less than as regards wild plants, North America shows a closer resemblance to Asia than to that favoured peninsula of Asia which the geographers call Europe.
CHAPTER VII
CULTIVATED PLANTS AND DOMESTICATED ANIMALS
Before proceeding to discuss the chief races of men in Europe, something must be said of its cultivated plants and animals. Originally, doubtless, the various human groups which have mingled in Europe had each their own type of culture, based upon the possession and cultivation of particular animals and plants. The lapse of time has caused so complete an intermixture that it is only possible to a very small extent to disentangle the different elements which have gone to the making of present day civilisation. Nevertheless, as climatic differences remain and still determine minor differences, it seems worth while to consider briefly the distribution of cultivated plants and domesticated animals at the present day.
Europe has been so strongly influenced by the neighbouring land-masses of which it forms a part, that we must begin with a few words about them.