SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 307 



became united by the upheaval of the sea-bottom, prob- 

 ably in the latter portion of the Miocene or early in the 

 Pliocene period. It is clear, therefore, that if Madagascar 

 had once formed part of Africa, but had been separated 

 from it before Africa was united to Europe and Asia, it 

 would not contain any of those kinds of animals which 

 then first entered the country. But, besides the African 

 mammals, we know that some birds now confined to 

 Africa then inhabited Europe, and we may therefore 

 fairly assume that all the more important groups of 

 birds, reptiles, and insects, now abundant in Africa, but 

 absent from Madagascar, formed no part of the original 

 African fauna, but entered the country only after it was 

 joined to Europe and Asia." Now in my opinion this 

 is an entirely wrong interpretation of the facts as tested 

 by our Law of Dispersal. Miocene (or any other) 

 Emigration into Africa from the North, as described by 

 Professor Huxley and by Dr. Wallace, could never have 

 taken place. One can almost venture to anticipate 

 the ultimate discovery of palaeontological evidence of 

 the former existence of these large mammals, even in 

 isolated Australia. 



The facts brought forward in the present volume place 

 us in a position to understand more fully the futility of 

 invoking a vast Antarctic continent to explain the 

 various apparent anomalies of distribution presented in 

 the Southern Hemisphere.^ The restoration of this sub- 

 merged or ice-clad Antarctic land mass can never be of 

 such service in explaining the occurrence of closely 

 allied forms in the now widely separated lands of the 



^ Conf. Fortnightly Review, February 1894, p. 194, and April 

 1895, p. 640. 



