t^evelopment, which could hardly be attributed to sd 

 small an island; but which becomes perfectly intelligible 

 Gn the supposition that Mauritius and the surrounding 

 islands are the remains of a continent submerged at a 

 Very remote geological period. The preceding figures 

 must not be looked upon as absolutely accurate, and I 

 have purposely avoided detail in the hope of, ere long, 

 presenting to the Society, a special paper on the Flora 

 of Mauritius considered in a geographical point of 

 view. 



Of (he Fauna of Mauritius I am scarcely qualified to 

 speak ; but so far as I have been able to ascertain, little 

 ha?, as yet, been done, with the exception only of the 

 testaceous Mollusca the greater part of which are well 

 known. The almost entire absence of Quadrupeds, 

 and the comparatively few species of birds is quite con- 

 sistent with the hypothesis that Mauritius is one of 

 the mountain-tops of a submerged continent ; for it 

 could hardly be expected that any other than a few 

 insectivorous quadrupeds should continue to live on so 

 small a spot and if the submergence was sudden it is 

 clear that all or nearly all Avould be destroyed. Even 

 here, however Ave formerly had one bird peculiar to 

 the region and indicating as great a peculiarity of 

 Fauna as of Flora. This wingless bird, the Dodo, finds 

 an analogue in New Zealand in the extinct Dihornis-^ 

 and the still existing Apteryx ; and Professor Owen in 

 a paper read before the British Association on the gi- 

 gantic extinct wingless birds of New Zealand, compa- 

 res the Fauna of the Mascareghn Islands and New Zea- 

 land with the Trias geological period in which the 

 strata are marked by trie foot prints of gigantic wing- 

 less birds ; and throws out the suggestion that land was 

 propagated like a wave throughout the vast interval 

 between Connecticut and New Zealand since the 

 ^Tiiassic period. 



