320 FOn.MER LAND COXXECTIOXS. 



and this authority mentioned only the Octodont rodents as 

 affording possible evidence in favour thereof. 



(jB.) Dr. Smith Woodward® stated that " neaz'ly all the 

 vertebrates in South America which seemed to suggest a direct- 

 land connection with the Old World through Africa, were either 

 (a) late-Tertiary immigrants from North America or (b) senile 

 members of pre-Tertiary cosmopolitan groups." Further, " most 

 of the resemblances in the faunas of the two countries usually 

 noted are amongst animals of which the ancestry is entirely 

 unknown. The only resemblances already explained by 

 palaeontology were due to the survival in the two southern 

 continents of remnants or refugees of formerly widespread faunas, 

 which had become extinct in the more progressive northern 

 hemisphere." 



It is true that many animals now restricted to the southern 

 hemisphere once enjoyed a much wider distribution, and prob- 

 ably certain resemblances in the faunas of South America and 

 Africa can be best explained in the ways just indicated. " As Dr. 

 Woodward did not specify any instances to support his general 

 statement, I shall merely mention several with which I am 

 familiar. 



(1) The Trogons constitute a very distinct group of birds. 

 There are five genera in Tropical America, one in Africa — including 

 the Narina Trogon, the most handsome of our forest birds — and 

 two in the Indian and Malayan region. They occur also in Upper 

 Oligocene deposits in France. Now the African genus Hapalo- 

 derma has apparently no special athnity with any of the American 

 genera : on the other hand, it seems clearly related to the two 

 Oriental genera inasnnich as these three differ from the American 

 genera in possessing patches of soft naked skin around the eyes. 



(2) For many years, certain peculiar spiders, comprising the 

 small family Archaeidae, have been known only from South 

 America (Mecysmauchenius) and Madagascar (Archaea). I have 

 recently found them also in South Africa (Arcliaea godfreyl). This 

 same genus Archaea occurred formerly also in Europe, being 

 found in Baltic amber, which is stated to be of Oligocene age. 



Thus, in both cases above-mentioned, there is undoubtedly 

 an Afro-American affinity, but in neither case is it so strong as 

 the affinity between African and other Old World members of 

 the group. 



(3) The freshwater tortoises of the family Pelomcdusidae 

 include only three genenx^ distributed as follows: — Podocncmis in 

 South America and Madagascar, Pelomedusa in Africa and ]\lada- 

 gascar, and Sternothaerus in Africa and Madagascar. In fossil 

 form, Podocnemis is also known from England, Egypt, East 

 Africa and India, in each case in Eocene deposits. Here, the 

 distribution of Podocnemis at the present day, disconnected as it 

 is in terms of any hypothesis, is alone sufficient to create suspicion 

 of a much wider distribution in past times. 



In these three instances, the fossil records in Europe point 

 to a possibility of wide distribution in the northern hemisphere, 

 at a period when Eurasia and North America were in free com- 



