36 AUSTEALASIA. 



Oceanic Fauna. 



The oceanic world has also its special faunas, although their distribution presents 

 the greatest contrast, according to the direction of the atmospheric and marine 

 currents, the greater or less isolation and accessibility of the insular groups. The 

 seabirds of strong wing and keen vision, who sweep over the waters for hundreds 

 of miles at a stretch, have a very wide range, limited north and south only by 

 the climatic conditions. They accomplish long migrations as easily as the fish, 

 and are able to spread from island to island, like the plants whose germs resist for 

 months the action of the marine water. But apart from these aquatic fowl, who 

 dominate the aerial spaces, most of the local animals are confined to their respective 

 insular domains, their migration from one region to another being raainl}^ due to 

 the conscious or unwilling intervention of man, or else to the facilities occasionally 

 presented by geological changes in the distribution of land and water. In no 

 other way does it seem possible to explain the existence of species common to 

 many remote islands as well as to these lands and the neighbouring continents. 

 On the other hand, forms peculiar to a single island or archipelago must be 

 regarded as of strictly local origin or development. However they may have 

 reached their present habitation, here their evolution into distinct forms has been 

 accomplished. But such characteristic types are chiefly confined to the lower 

 members of the animal kingdom. 



Madagascar, which almost ranks as a continent in virtue of its peculiar flora, is 

 no less original in its fauna, which with one or two exceptions appears to be almost 

 entirel}^ local. The Mascarenhas also constitute an independent centre, which till 

 recently comprised some birds badly equipped for the vital struggle, and conse- 

 quently destined soon to disappear after the arrival of man. 



Notwithstanding its proximity to the Indian and Indo-Chinese peninsulas, the 

 Eastern Archipelago cannot be regarded as a simple zoological dependency of the 

 mainland. On the contrary, it appears to be itself the centre of dispersion for 

 numerous forms, the Malay peninsula and Indo-China having apparently received 

 from the archipelago as many immigrants as they have sent thither. If the 

 elephant, rhinoceros, and tiger have reached Sumatra from the continent, Borneo, 

 or at least the region of which this island is a fragment, has given in exchange 

 the orang-utan and several other peculiar insular forms. So rich is Malaysia in 

 large mammals that this region should be regarded as still forming part of the 

 Asiatic world. 



The parting line between the Malaysian and Australian zoological zones 

 passes to the east of Celebes, which island forms a little centre of its own, very 

 distinct in many respects from all its neighbours. 



Australia, the home of the marsupials, presents in its fauna, as in its flora, a 

 character of antiquity which has led some geologists to regard it as one of those 

 regions whose surfaces have never been re-moulded or seriously modified by 

 natural agencies. Nevertheless, comparatively recent Tertiary formations are now 

 known to occupy a large extent of the continent. The marsupials, unknown in the 



