THE ISLAND OF BERMUDA 
183 
sentatives of the marsupials, it would not be unreasonable to 
argue that the opossums had invaded North America from the 
southern continent. Mr. Lydekker’s * conclusion is that 
opossums are only recent immigrants from the south, 
although he does not believe that South America was their 
original home. He (p. 55) selects south-eastern Asia as the 
birthplace of the opossum family (Didelphyidae), urging that 
the latter scattered from this centre towards Europe and North 
America. He also contends that the allied family Dasyu- 
ridae <originated in southern Asia, spreading thence to 
Australia, and by an antarctic land connection from there to 
South America. I shall return to this subject in some of the 
subsequent chapters (p. 283 and p. 366). 
There is still another problem of exceptional interest which 
I wish to enlarge upon, namely, that of the origin of the 
Bermudan fauna. The island of Bermuda has certain 
faunistic affinities with Florida, and we may therefore con¬ 
sider the origin of its fauna as an appendix to this chapter. 
It consists in reality of a series of about one hundred 
islands and islets, their total area being less than twenty 
square miles. The island of Bermuda, as we may call it for 
the sake of brevity, lies approximately seven hundred miles 
eastward of North Carolina, being apparently surrounded on 
all sides by a depth of from 1,500 to 2,000 fathoms. 
Dr. Wallace,f who gives us a brief description of the 
fauna and flora of the island, concludes that Bermuda 
furnishes ns with one of the most instructive facts as to the 
power of many groups of organisms to pass over seven 
hundred miles .of open sea. There is no doubt whatever, 
he remarks, that all the indigenous species have thus reached 
the island. 
I may as well say that my own views differ entirely from 
those of Dr. Wallace as regards the origin of Bermuda and of 
its indigenous fauna and flora. I believe the island to have 
formed part of a wide belt of land, which extended northward 
from the West Indies, joining the mainland of North America 
somewhere near Massachusetts, at a time when most of the 
* Lydekker, R., “ Geographical History of Mammals,” p. 108. 
t Wallace, A. R., “Island Life,” p. 278. 
