Lizards, serpents, and reptiles of every description abound in various parts of the African continent, though its general aridity, throughout extensive regions, is less favorable to the development of reptile life than in the case of correspondent latitudes elsewhere. The crocodile inhabits all the large rivers of tropical Africa, and is abundant in the lower portion of the Nile. The huge python, sometimes twenty-two feet in length (though inferior in size to the boa of the New World), is found in the swamps and morasses of the western coast, and some species of the cobra (or hooded snake) occur--chiefly in Southern Africa and on the shores of Guinea. Insects abound, both in species and as individuals; among them is the locust, which at intervals ravages all the northern parts of the continent. But the termites, or white ants, of Western Africa are the most celebrated members of the insect family, and effect the most extraordinary destruction of furniture, books, clothes, food, and everything that comes in their way. They build pyramidal or conical nests, firmly cemented together, and divided into several apartments--so large that at first sight they appear in the distance like the villages of the natives. Both the bee and the wasp are numerously distributed, but the bee has not been domesticated by any of the native people of this continent; it is, however, reared by the Arabs in Northern Africa. The New World exhibits, through its vast prolongation in the direction of latitude, a development of animal life which is almost infinitely varied, and which differs in many essential regards from that belonging to either of the continents of the Eastern Hemisphere. Each of the nine orders of Mammalia is represented within its limits, but many of the most attractive and valuable members of the animal life of Asia and Africa are nevertheless wanting. America has neither the elephant nor the camel; and neither the horse, the ox, the sheep, nor the hog is indigenous to it.