313 Dr. J. Kirk on the Birds of the Zambesi Region. 



Seychelles, not represented on the continent of Africa, and 

 differing from what is met with in any other part of the globe. 

 This consists of peculiar natural orders, elsewhere unknown, and 

 of singular forms having American rather than African or Indian 

 affinity. Had these existed in Madagascar at the time it was 

 united to the mainland, surely some trace of them would still 

 remain on the continent. 



These islands possess an equally distinctive fauna, parallel 

 with the peculiar flora. The African element, however, is not so 

 strong amongst the animals. The name proposed by Dr. Sclater 

 for this region — " Lemuria " — is apt and distinctive. Although I 

 do not acquiesce in the principle that a region should be named 

 after the oldest race it contains ; it should be from its actual 

 possessors, which here is the case. But in Madagascar the 

 African element preserved in its flora possibly represents an 

 older time than the Lemurian fauna. Plants have more resist- 

 ance than animals, and less speedily undergo change. Yet I 

 would not anticipate that there are to be found in the fossil 

 strata of Madagascar remains of the African Proboscideans and 

 Antelopes. The communication between the islands and the 

 continent may have been before these came to Africa. Since 

 the separation, a tertiary period, with its peculiar Nummulites, 

 mollusks and fishes, preserved in the limestone-band which 

 encrusts the Eastern African continent in these parts, has 

 passed away; and although the Hippopotamus and existing 

 animals have been traced back in those regions to an old diluvial 

 period, yet these fall far short of the separation-period of these 

 islands from the mainland. 



The wide extent of shallow soundings in the seas around Mada- 

 gascar and the Seychelles indicates an old continent now under 

 water. The Seychelles, for instance, are but the summit-peaks 

 of a submarine table-land of great extent — much greater than 

 that given in the charts, for these seas are far from having been 

 thoroughly surveyed. Again, a mass of coral-reefs, rings of 

 low lands above water, are scattered in the seas between the 

 Seychelles and Madagascar. It is not to be supposed, however, 

 that every peak now above the surface is of great age. Two geo- 

 logical structures are found. That of Madagascar and the Sey- 



