6o4 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



civets, mongooses, the aard-wolf, hyaenas, jackals, foxes, and 

 ratels. Of Insectivora there are the jumping-shrews, golden 

 moles, a few hedge-hogs and shrews, the river-shrews. Of 

 the Frimates there are one family of lemurs, the gorillas 

 and chimpanzee, and a great number of smaller monkeys 

 of the family Cercopithecidce, and including the baboons. 

 Of this great and heterogeneous assemblage there is a 

 large number peculiar to the region. No order is of this 

 category, but there are the following families : — The aard- 

 varks, the dasses (partly in Syria), the Anomaluridce, giraffes, 

 hippopotamuses,, aard-wolf {Frotelidce). golden moles and 

 jumping-shrews ; and of lesser groups, the zebras and pre- 

 dominance of the antelopes. Again, we may note the 

 absence of the bears, tapirs, camels and deer and poor 

 representation of the Alustelidce ; and of lesser groups, sheep 

 and goats and wolves. 



The paltcontological history of Africa during the Tertiary period has 

 yet to be worked out, but the evidence of the faunistic characters of 

 Madagascar on the one hand and of the Oriental and Holarctic regions 

 on the other, lead us to suppose that there is a remarkable parallelism in 

 the history of Ethiopia to that of Neogoea. As in the latter case, we can 

 recognise an indigenous fauna of Africa flourishing during the Eocene 

 and Oligocene periods, of which we have a kind of sample in Madagascar 

 at the present day. Certainly, lemurs, civets and primitive types of 

 Insectivora abounded. During the Miocene, or possibly later, Mada- 

 gascar became separated from the mainland and subsequently there com- 

 menced a great immigration from the Oriental and partly the Holarctic 

 regions, probably by the north-east district, of the rhinoceroses, hippo- 

 potamuses, giraffes, water - chevrotains, large "cats," hyoenas and 

 monkeys. The evidence for this is based partly upon the great present- 

 day resemblance between the mammals of the Ethiopian and Oriental 

 region and also upon the fossil remains of these types found in Greece, 

 Persia and India, dating from Miocene. Thus here again we may 

 trace the irruption of a more primitive fauna during early Oligocene into 

 Africa from the north and later, probably during early Pliocene, a 

 second immigration southwards of more modern types. It is usually 

 assumed that, during the interregnum between these two migrations, 

 Ethiopia was isolated by sea from the north, but this assumption 

 scarcely appears to be absolutely necessary though quite probable. 



3. Oriental Region. — The Oriental region comprises 

 India, Further India, Southern China and Malay, up to the 

 line of east of Celebes. As a whole, this region most 

 resembles the Ethiopian, mainly owing to the late migration 

 of Oriental types at a comparatively late date into the latter. 



