14 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



the West Indies. Four families of Bats occur, but are represented, 

 with one exception, by a single species each. They belong to 

 groups of semi-cosmopolitan range, and owing also to the excep 

 tional means of dispersal possessed by the Chiroptera, have little 

 weight in determining the affinities of the fauna. The Quadru- 

 manes are represented only by the Prosimia, of which three- fourths 

 of all the species occur here, while about four-fifths of the remain 

 der are African. The remains of an extinct species of Hippopota 

 mus have been found, a type existing at present only in Africa. 

 Although the Indian genus Viverricula has recently been established 

 as occurring in Madagascar, the few types that connect the Lemu- 

 rian mammalian fauna with the faunae of other parts of the world 

 are preponderatingly African." 



There is much that could be said on both sides of this question, 

 thus ably discussed. When, however, we recall the fact, lately 

 urged, that most of the types that now characterize Africa are com 

 paratively recent immigrants into that continent ; that the nearest 

 existing allies of the peculiar mammalian types of Madagascar are 

 to be found among the older types of Africa, and that the few fresh 

 water fishes of Madagascar are of a decided African type, the diver 

 gences of the two are materially lessened ; there is no dispute that 

 the relations of the Malagasy fauna are most intimate with Africa, 

 and as the question of the distinction of the former from the latter 

 is at least doubtful, and must remain so until its fauna is better 

 known and has been more thoroughly analyzed, we may, provision 

 ally, at least, consider the one as an appanage of the other, having 

 not much less perceptible relations to the main portion than does 

 the Antillean to the South American. 



THE SOUTH AMERICAN TEMPERATE REALM. 



In Mr. Allen's words, " What is here termed the South American 

 Temperate Realm embraces all that portion of the South American 

 continent and adjacent islands not included in the American Tropi 

 cal Realm as already defined. It coincides very nearly with Mr. 

 Wallace's 'South Temperate American or Chilian Sub-region.'* 



* Geog. Dist. Animals, vol. ii, p. 36, and map of the Neotropical Region. 



