THE QUARTERLY 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
APRIL, 1864. 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
THE MAMMALS OF MADAGASCAR. 
By P. L. Scuarsr, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary of the Zoological 
Society of London. 
OreGanio beings are not scattered broadcast over the earth’s surface 
without regularity or arrangement, as the casual observer might sup- 
pose, nor are they distributed according to the variations of climate 
or of any other physical external agent, although the latter have, un- 
questionably, much influence in modifying their forms. But each 
species (or assemblage of similar individuals), whether of the animal 
or vegetable kingdom, is found to occupy a certain definite and con- 
tinuous geographical area on the earth. In like manner, each genus, 
or assemblage of species, each family, or assemblage of genera, and 
each order, or assemblage of families, may be said to be subject to 
similar laws, as regards its geographical distribution,—although, as 
might have been supposed, the areas occupied by the higher groups 
are usually larger, and in some cases co-extensive with the earth’s 
surface. 
It thus happens that the various parts of the world are charac- 
terized by possessing special groups of animals and vegetables, and 
that, as a general rule, such tracts of land as are most nearly con- 
tiguous have their Faune and Flore most nearly resembling one 
another ; while, vice versa, those that are farthest asunder are inhabited 
by most different forms of animal and vegetable life. When any 
exception to this rule occurs, and two adjacent lands possess dis- 
similar forms, or two regions far apart exhibit similar forms, it is the 
task of the student of geographical distribution to give some reason 
why this has come about, and so to make the “exception prove the 
rule.” 
In the present paper I propose to devote a short space to the 
examination of one of the best known and strangest of these anomalies 
VOL. I. Q 
