Under the head of the zoology of western Peru we beg leave to present to the reader a translation of a chapter on the influence of climate on animals, especially on domestic animals, taken from the work of the late Dr. Don Hipolito Unanue, entitled “Observaciones sobre el Clima de Lima.” Dr. Unanue was an ornament to society, and honoured by his country, as well under the Spanish as the Patriot government: by the former, as the reader already knows, he was appointed chief of the medical tribunal of Peru; by the latter, president of that republic. TRANSLATION. The horrid picture of America which has been drawn by some ultramarine philosophers does not apply to Peru, and can only be viewed as the production of their own excited imaginations. Where else, indeed, could they have found those dark and unfriendly dies which enabled them to depict these happy regions under a repulsive aspect?—as so many dark spots in the creation denied the blessing of Providence,—as the dismal abode of serpents, crocodiles, and venomous monsters.[44] Quale portentum neque militaris Daunia in latis alit esculetis; Nec Jubæ tellus generat, leonum Arida nutrix. HOR. The learned Count Buffon laid down and wished to establish the four following propositions: 1st, that of the animals common to the old and new continents, the breed is larger in the former than in the latter; 2d, that the animals indigenous to the new are less than those of the old hemisphere; 3d, that the species of domestic animals which have been transplanted from Europe, have degenerated in America; 4th, that this part of the earth furnishes but few races of animals peculiar to itself. But the inaccuracy of these propositions has been demonstrated by the illustrious President Jefferson[45] in comparative tables of the existing animals on both continents. This, however, seems to be certain, that, as animals depend for their support on the productions of the vegetable kingdom, their number and growth will be in proportion to the luxuriance of vegetation; and therefore, there being in the one hemisphere as well as in the other very extensive plains covered with abundant pastures, and likewise poor and sterile regions that yield little or no nutriment, either hemisphere will exceed the other in the size, number, and beauty of its animals, wherever it happens to exceed the other in the fertility and extent of its woods and meadows.