Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands. 335 



gascar with Africa as beyond doubt — a junction which, how- 

 ever, must have terminated before the inroad into Africa of 

 the more highly organized Mammals — every one will allow 

 this opinion to be at all events well founded. But when he 

 proceeds to state that the fauna of Madagascar is manifestly 

 of African origin his assurances are based upon very slender 

 grounds. In truth the individuality of the fauna of Mada- 

 gascar is so unique that even that of New Zealand can hardly 

 be compared with it. Wallace's attempted parallel between 

 Madagascar and Africa^ and the Antilles and South America, 

 is, in our eyes, sufficiently disproven by the occurrence in the 

 Antilles of Trochilidse, one of the most characteristic forms 

 of South America. But in Madagascar not a single one of 

 the genera most characteristic of Africa occurs. This origi- 

 nality of the fauna is much too pronounced to allow Mada- 

 gascar to be treated only as a " Subregion^' or as an " aber- 

 rant part " of the ^Ethiopian Region. 



As already remarked, Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaii-e rightly 

 put forward the remarkable relations of the fauna of the 

 Madagascarian Subregion to India, at a time when it was 

 very imperfectly known. To our astonishment we meet with, 

 in both its subdivisions (Madagascar and the Mascarenes), 

 the truly Indian genus Hypsipetes. Not less strange is the 

 appearance of the genus Copsychus in Madagascar and the 

 Seychelles, of the Indian type of Dicrurus (as represented by 

 D. waldeni) on the Comoros, and of Plotus melanog aster in- 

 stead of its African representative in Madagascar. Two birds 

 of this island, Ninox lugubris and a Cisticola, are hardly sepa- 

 rable from Indian species. Two others, Scops rutilus and 

 Anas bernieri, are so like Scops menadensis and Anas gibberi- 

 frons that they are not easily distinguishable. The Indian 

 Charadrius geoffroyi is no rarity in Madagascar. Dramas 

 and Gygis, two characteristic forms of this subregion, one of 

 Indian, the other of Oceanic origin, estrange it from Africa. 

 A typical Ploceus of Madagascar (P. sakalava) belongs to the 

 lndi\2in philippinus group. The peculiar Hartlaubia is nearer 

 to the Upper-Indian Psaroglossa than to any African form. 

 The Indo-Australian group of the Artamida surprises us in 



