THE HOLARCTIC REGION. [CHAP. 



connection with the mainland. Probably also it was by one or 

 both of these routes that the hippopotamus and spotted hyaena 

 passed between Europe and Africa, as it is scarcely likely that the 

 former animal, at least, travelled round by way of Turkey and 

 Syria. Writing of the Maltese islands, Leith-Adams 1 observes 

 that "although from their smallness the islands furnish only scant 

 evidences of the complicated and extensive oscillations of level 

 to which the original area has been subjected from first to last, 

 nevertheless the data I have furnished are at the least suggestive, 

 and, in conjunction with the fossilised remains, seem to lead to 

 the belief, that in the first place there was an upheaval of a large 

 tract of land in this portion of the Mediterranean at some period 

 towards or after the close of the Miocene epoch. In the second 

 place, that during the Quaternary [Plistocene] period, the whole, 

 or at least all excepting perhaps the tops of the Benjemma heights 

 and Gozo hills, were again submerged ; and, thirdly, that a re- 

 elevation of the land took place, ending in the present insular 

 fragments. Perhaps in the first case there was a connection or 

 contemporaneity in the upheaval of the Miocene beds of Malta, 

 Sicily, Italy, Candia, the Red Sea, Egypt, Arabia, Cerigo, Azores, 

 Algeria, Southern France, and Spain. Thus the islands of the 

 inland sea may represent portions of a land area now occupied 

 more or less by water. When this area began to sink is not 

 apparent, but the fact that the same elephant and hyaena now 

 living in Africa existed in Sicily, shews that there was a land- 

 connection between the two at a very recent epoch." 



Regarding the nature of the former connection between Italy, 

 Sicily, and Malta, Dr Wallace 2 writes that a comparatively shallow 

 sea or submerged bank incloses Malta and Sicily, and " that on 

 the opposite coast a similar bank stretches out from the coast of 

 Tripoli, leaving a narrow channel, the greatest depth of which is 

 240 fathoms. Here, therefore, is a broad plateau, which an eleva- 

 tion of about 1,500 feet would convert into a wide extent of land 

 connecting Italy with Africa ; while the same elevation would also 

 connect Morocco with Spain, leaving two extensive lakes to repre- 



1 The Nile Valley and Malta (London, 1870), p. 211. 



2 Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vol. I. p. 201. 



