328 ANIMALS OF EGA. Chap. V. 



Asia by a shallow sea, whilst they are separated from 

 New Guinea by a channel of very deep water ; the 

 shallow sea pointing to a former, but recent, union of the 

 lands which it connects, the deep channel a complete 

 and enduring severance of the lands which it separates. 

 Now, with regard to monkeys, these four land masses 

 seem to have had these animals allotted to them in 

 the most capricious way possible, if we are to take 

 for granted that the species were arbitrarily created 

 on the lands where they are now found. Australia, with 

 soil and climate as well adapted for Baboons as Africa, 

 where they abound, and New Guinea, with rich humid 

 forests as suitable for Orangs and Gibbons as the very 

 similar island of Borneo, have, neither of them, a single 

 species of native monkey. Madagascar possesses only 

 Lemurs, the most lowly-organised group of apes, 

 although the neighbouring continent of Africa contains 

 numerous species of all families of Old World apes. 

 America, as we have seen, has no Lemurs, and not a 

 single representative of the Old World groups of the 

 order, but is well peopled by genera and species belonging 

 to two distinct groups peculiar to the continent. Lastly, 

 the Old World continental mass, with a few anomalous 

 forms of Lemurs scattered here and there, is the exclu- 

 sive home of the whole of the Pithecidae family, which 

 presents a series of forms graduating from the debased 

 Baboon -to the Gorilla, which some zoologists consider 

 to approach near to man in his organisation. 



What does all this mean ? Why are the different 

 forms apportioned in this way to the various lands of 

 the earth 1 Why is Australia with New Guinea desti- 



