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Ch. XXXVIII.] 



MAMMALIA OF' ETHIOPIAN EEGION. 



345 



taken in sliips. The most cliaracteristic feature of this 

 remarkable fauna consists in the nnmber of quadrnmana of 

 the Lemur family^ no less than six genera of those monkeys 

 being exclusively met with in this island, and a seventh 

 >'enus of the same, called GalagOy which alone has any foreign 



representative, being 



found, as we 



mi 



have anticipated, on the nearest mainland. 



from analogy 

 Madagascar is 

 . the same lati- 



tude as the adjoining part of the continent of Africa, enjoys 



climate 



M 



gascar agreed with those of Africa, as do those of England 

 with the rest of Europe, the naturalist would have inferred 

 that there had been a land communication since the period 

 of the coming in of the existing quadrupeds, whereas we may 

 now conclude that the broad Mozambique channel has con- 

 stituted an insuperable barrier to the fusion of the conti- 

 nental fauna with that of the great island during the whole 

 period that has elapsed since the living species of mammalia 



came into being". 



c!3 



Mada 



Africa was 



time 



•emote as the Upper Miocene 



varied materially from that which it now exhibits ; so that avo 

 may readilj suppose the arm of the sea constituting the 

 Mozambique channel to have been dry land at that period. 

 Some of the peculiar Miocene genera may have survived on 

 the island after they became extinct on the continent, and a 

 still greater number of species. Other famihes, such as the 

 Lemurs, may have multiplied more in the island than on the 

 continent; but in spite of such changes the two faunas 

 continental and insular (assuming the origin of species by 

 variation and natural selection) would continue to bear the 

 mark of having sprung from a common source at a compa- 

 ratively modern era. They would continue to have 

 affinity with each other than with any more distant region, 

 such as the Indian or Australian. On the other hand, the 

 hypothesis of special creation helps us in no way to account 

 for such generic and family ties as bind together these two 

 sets of animals in each of which all the snecies are distinct. 



LB ^ 



more 



