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Ch. XXXVIII.] 



AND AUSTRALIAN EEGIONS. 



349 



and tlie conversion of land into sea and sea into land, with 

 wliicli geology has made us acquainted, and of the accompany- 



ing fluctuations in the state of the oro-anic world. 



these for 



Taking: 



may 



islands were once united with each other or with the neioh- 

 bouring continents at comparatively recent periods. Where 

 this has happened, the same species of animals and plants 

 will be found to be common to the lands now disjoined, and 



them 



But if 



the natural productions are dissimilar, we may safely speculate 

 on the separation having- taken place at a more remote epoch, 

 as in the case before mentioned of Madagascar and Africa, 

 where we have seen that the intervening sea is very deep. 



The line a h in the map, fig. 132, indicates a line of sound- 

 ing exceeding 100 fathoms, the sea to the westward of this 

 line having everywhere a depth of less than 100 fathoms ; and 

 here we find the limits of the two faunas, the Indian and the 

 Australian, very sharply defined. When speaking of the 

 contrast of the animals inhabiting the two regions Mr. 

 Wallace says : ' In Australia there are no apes or monkeys, no 

 cats or tigers ; no wolves, bears, or hyasnas ; no deer, or sheep, 

 or oxen ; no elephant, horse, squirrel, or rabbit ; none, in short, 

 of those familiar types of quadrupeds which are met with on 

 the Indian area. Instead of these Australia has its marsupials, 

 kangaroos, opossums, and wombats, and the representatives of 

 a still lower division of the mammalia, the duck-billed Platy- 

 pus (or Ornithorynchus) , and the Echidna. Its birds,' he 

 continues, ' are almost as peculiar : it has no woodpeckers and 



familie 



world. 



them 



turkeys, the honeysuckers, the cockatoos, and the brush- 

 tongued Lories, which are found nowhere else upon the olobe.'^^' 



om 



w' 



do m two hours, we find on the western side a complete con- 

 trast m animal hfe. We meet, for example, with barbets, 

 fruit-thrushes, and woodpeckers ; instead of honeysuckers 

 and brush-turkeys. In like manner, if we travel from Java 



o 



