402 ISLAND LIFE 



with 35 species of mammalia, and 128 species of land- 

 birds from Formosa, fourteen of the former and forty-three 

 of the latter being peculiar, while the remainder inhabit 

 also some jDart of the continent or adjacent islands. This 

 proportion of peculiar species is perhajDS (as regards the 

 birds) the highest to be met with in any island which can 

 be classed as both continental and recent, and this, in all 

 probability, implies that the epoch of separation is some- 

 what remote. It was not, however, remote enough to reach 

 back to a time when the continental fauna was very 

 different from what it is now, for we find all the chief 

 types of living Asiatic mammalia represented in this small 

 island. Thus we have monkeys ; insectivora ; numerous 

 carnivora ; pigs, deer, antelopes, and cattle among 

 ungulata ; numerous rodents, and the edentate Manis, — 

 a very fair representation of Asiatic mammals, all being 

 of known genera, and of species either absolutely identical 

 with some still living elsewhere or very closely allied to 

 them. The birds exhibit analogous i^henomena, with the 

 exception that we have here two peculiar and very inter- 

 esting genera. 



But besides the amount of specific and generic modifica- 

 tion that has occurred, we have another indication of the 

 lapse of time in the peculiar relations of a large proportion 

 of the Formosan animals, which show that a great change 

 in the distribution of Asiatic species must have taken 

 place since the separation of the island from the continent. 

 Before pointing these out it will be advantageous to give 

 lists of the mammalia and peculiar birds of the island, as 

 we shall have frequent occasion to refer to them. 



List of the Mammalia of Formosa. (The peculiar species are printed 



in italics.) 



1. Macacus cyclopis. A rock-monkey more allied to M. rhesus of India 



than to M. sancti-johannis of South China. 



2. Pteropus formosus. A fruit-bat closely allied to the Japanese species. 



None of the genus are found in China. 



3. Vesper ugo abramus. China. 



4. A^'espertilio formosus. Black and orange Bat, China. 



f). Nyctinomus cestonii. Large-eared Bat. China, S. Europe. 

 0. Talpa insularis. A blind mole of a peculiar species. 



