272 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part hi. 



The only known land-shells are 2 peculiar species of Balea, a 

 genus only found elsewhere in Europe and Brazil. 



IV. Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands, or the Malagasy 



Sub-region. 



This insular sub-region is one of the most remarkable zoo- 

 logical districts on the globe, bearing a similar relation to Africa 

 as the Antilles to tropical America, or New Zealand to Australia, 

 but possessing a much richer fauna than either of these, and in 

 some respects a more remarkable one even than New Zealand. 

 It comprises, besides Madagascar, the islands of Mauritius, 

 Bourbon, and Bodriguez, the Seychelles and Comoro islands. 

 Madagascar itself is an island of the first class, being a thousand 

 miles long and about 250 miles in average width. It lies 

 parallel to the coast of Africa, near the southern tropic, and is 

 separated by 230 miles of sea from the nearest part of the con- 

 tinent, although a bank of soundings projecting from its western 

 coast reduces this distance to about 160 miles. Madagascar is 

 a mountainous island, and the greater part of the interior consists 

 of open elevated plateaus ; but between these and the coast there 

 intervene broad belts of luxuriant tropical forests. It is this 

 forest-district which has yielded most of those remarkable types 

 of animal life which we shall have to enumerate ; and it is 

 probable that many more remain to be discovered. As all the 

 main features of this sub-region are developed in Madagascar, 

 we shall first endeavour to give a complete outline of the fauna 

 of that country, and afterwards show how far the surrounding 

 islands partake of its peculiarities. 



Mammalia. — The fauna of Madagascar is tolerably rich in 

 genera and species of mammalia, although these belong to a very 

 limited number of families and orders. It is especially charac- 

 terized by its abundance of Lemuridaa and Insectivora ; it also 

 possesses a few peculiar Carnivora of small size ; but most of 

 the other groups in which Africa is especially rich — apes and 

 monkeys, lions, leopards and hyaenas, zebras, giraffes, antelopes, 

 elephants and rhinoceroses, and even porcupines and squirrels, 

 are wholly wanting. No less than 40 distinct families of land 



