DISTRIBUTION OF OPHIDIANS. 227 



appears to be constant in all these localities. The Iloma- 

 lopsis of Schneider, which inliabits India even to New 

 Guinea, presents, in these different localities, numerous 

 petty differences, of which the greatest number appear ac- 

 cidental. The Great Two-rayed Python comes from the 

 Straits of Sunda, and from China ; it inhabits the two pe- 

 ninsula3 of India, the isle of Ceylon, and is found even in 

 Senegambia, probably existing in a great part of intertro- 

 pical Africa. I consider all those Pythons as pertaining 

 to the same species ; but I know not if several naturalists 

 may not perhaps discover various differences between indi- 

 viduals from these different places, sufficient, in their eyes, 

 to establish several subspecies, which will necessarily in- 

 volve the establishment of the species as a subgenus. The 

 Elaps furcatus and E. bivirgatus present, at Sumatra, a 

 different arrangement of colours from those in Java. 

 Finally, I could fill a separate volume in describing all the 

 minute modifications experienced, in those different regions, 

 by each isolated family of the same species of animals, of 

 which the number is so immense in that part of the world. 

 Each of these regions, however, produces species which 

 are peculiar to itself, or wdiicli are only found in some 

 of them. All the world knows that the islands of Su- 

 matra and Borneo produce several animals, and some of 

 those too of large size, which are not found in any other 

 point of that Archipelago, not even in Java, which, on the 

 other hand, produces certain animals which do not appear 

 to inhabit the other islands. One is tempted to consider 

 the geological constitution of the land as determining the 

 distribution of animals ; but experience shews us, that it 

 has only a secondary or indirect influence, inasmuch as it 

 modifies the nature of the soil, or as it determines the age 

 of those islands or regions. The climate, which does not 

 always influence even the distribution of plants, does not 

 generally present an obstacle to that of animals, particularly 

 where there is a concurrence of the other conditions neces- 

 sary to their existence, and when they can find, throughout 

 the year, the food which Nature designed for them.* It is 



* Tlie Orang-outan and the Semnopithccus nasutus, for example, live 



