MIGRATION OF TERRESTRIAL VERTEBRATES 315 



Orycteropes and Pangolins. Notwithstanding the 

 scarcity of early palseontological proofs on African 

 territory, all these groups can hardly have reached 

 Europe in the Second half of the Tertiary times, 

 except by way of Africa, where their descendants 

 exist at the present day. According to Ameghino, 

 the migrations from Patagonia to Africa have been 

 more numerous and more important still. It is by 

 means of this route that this palaeontologist sees 

 the peopling of the whole Boreal hemisphere by 

 Primates, Condylarthra, Imparidigitse, Amblypods, 

 Proboscidians, Suillians, Tillodonts, Creodonts, Ro- 

 dents, etc. I can only make passing mention of 

 these bold views of the Argentine scholar, which 

 are in opposition to all classical ideas and tend to 

 represent Patagonia as the true and only centre of 

 origin of all the placental and non-placental Mam- 

 mals. 



The great island of Madagascar, separated from 

 Africa since the commencement of the Secondary, 

 but remaining, on the other hand, connected with 

 the Hindu continent till the end of the Cretacean, 

 again contracted, during the Tertiary, fugitive 

 connections with South America, as is shown by 

 its Edentata of the genus Brady therium, Insect- 

 eaters of the Centetidae family, on the one hand, 

 and with India (evidenced by its eaters, Rous- 

 settes*, dispersion of Lemurians, etc.) on the other, 

 and finally with Africa across the Mozambique 

 Canal. Communication with this last must have 

 taken place, accordinglto Lemoine, first at the 

 Oligocene epoch (Orycteropes, Lemurians, Viver- 



* Fruit-eating chiroptera like the squirrel. ED. 



