ANCIENT FAUNA OF THE MASCARENE ISLANDS. o49 



Mauritius, Eeunion, and Rodriguez, at the date when our 

 navigators first landed tliere, were in possession of a special 

 fauna, verj^ remarkable by the great wingless birds, unknown in 

 tlie rest of the world, by gigantic tortoises, by saurians and many 

 other terrestrial animals which could not have arrived there by 

 sea, and which lived there in great numbers. 



" This zoological population, so rich, so varied, does not seem as 

 if it could have been born on lands of so restricted an extent ; and 

 considerations, on whicli I have already insisted, have led me to 

 think that these islands must be considered as the remains of a 

 continent whose inhabitants, before completely disappearing from 

 the surface of the world, have found on the culminating points 

 sunk almost to the level of the sea a last refuge. 



"Indeed, from the general character of the aboriginal fauna of 

 the Mascarene Islands we can be assured that these presumed 

 lands never connected any of tliese stations either witli Mada- 

 gascar or Africa, or with India or Australia, for there is not seen 

 any one of the animals deprived of wings which characterise the 

 animal populations of these countries. The Malagasy fauna is 

 altogether special, but it has, nevertheless, with the New Zealand 

 fauna and that of the Antarctic region, certain points of resem- 

 blance, such as we need not hesitate to class among the southern 

 fauna. It is, then, possible that formerly it might have extended 

 more to the south, and we find ourselves brought to the idea 

 of a great land formerly existing in the part of the Antarctic 

 Ocean occupied at the present day by the immense banks of 

 marine j)lants, which are designated under the common name of 

 Kelp. 



" In the present state of our knowledge, only most vague con- 

 jectures can be formed relating to the ensemble of tlie fauna of 

 which the animal population of the Mascarene Islands affords us a 

 specimen ; but it is to be hoped that, when the travelled 

 naturalists shall have explored the marshes, the caverns, and 

 sedimentary deposits of the islands, Crozet, Kerguelen, St. Paul, 

 and other points of the same region, they will discover there some 

 fossil remains analogous to those found at Rodriguez or Mauritius, 

 and that by the help of these remains it will be possible to recon- 



