SOUTH ATLANTIC LAND BRIDGE 
875 
the Cretaceous of Patagonia and New Zealand, the Eocene 
of Egypt, England and India, and the Miocene of Egypt and 
Malta. The faunistic relationship between Patagonia and New 
Zealand will be explained later on, yet it has by no means been 
produced by a sub-universal distribution. The only fossil oc¬ 
currence of Podocnemis we know of from Africa is that from 
Egypt, and even that, with Malta and England, is rather sug¬ 
gestive of a radiation from a Mediterranean centre. The 
dispersal from an originally Patagonian birthplace may have 
taken place westward to New Zealand and northward along 
the ancient land connection, which I described as extending 
by way of Central America to southern Europe. It is impor¬ 
tant to bear in mind this very peculiar case of faunistic rela¬ 
tionship between South. America and Madagascar, exclusive 
of the African continent, because similar instances are met 
with among many groups of animals and plants. I have 
already alluded to one, and it was first suggested by Dr. 
H. 0. Forbes, I think, that this range was due to a former 
direct land connection between Patagonia and Madagascar. 
I drew attention in a former chapter (p. 173) to the 
members of the family Amphisbaenidae as furnishing, on 
account of their subterranean habits, important evidences 
of former changes of land and water. I may men¬ 
tion again that they are limbless, wormlike liazrds, and 
that many of them live underground in ants’ nests. They 
are not liable, therefore, to accidental dispersal. Their 
distribution is most interesting. They inhabit mostly Africa 
and South America. A few occur in the West Indies and 
the Mediterranean region. Some have even spread into the 
southern States of North America, and we possess a few 
remains from Oligocene deposits. Otherwise we know nothing 
of their past history. We might suppose that some early mem¬ 
ber of this family had spread across the mid-Atlantic land 
bridge to the Mediterranean region and thence colonised 
Africa with Amphisbaenidae. But in this instance such a 
land bridge cannot help us, because the genus Amphisbaena 
occurs in Africa and South America, while the Mediterranean 
region is inhabited by the genus Blanus. The latter, no doubt, 
may owe its origin to a migration across this mid-Atlantic 
land bridge, still we can scarcely imagine that, coming from 
