ANlTIVERSAPvT ADDEESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 89 



Life;' and, although this was not his first view, he has come 

 in the last-named work to the decided conclusion that there is no 

 evidence of any former land-connexion in the direction named. 

 With one important exceptioD, that of the remarks on the Upper 

 Palaeozoic and Lower Mesozoic flora*, concerning which I think 

 Mr. Wallace has failed to appreciate the facts as a whole, there is 

 scarcely anything in his arguments with which I am inclined to 

 disagree. Upon the evidence noticed by him, relating chiefly to 

 mammals and birds, his conclusions are, I think, reasonable, and I 

 quite concur in his reasons for rejecting Sclater's and Hartlaub's 

 hypothesis of " Lemuria." But he has overlooked some of the evi- 

 dence and is, I think, not acquainted with certain material facts. 



I have already referred to the remarkable peculiarities of the 

 Madagascar mammal-fauna, and its great difference from that of 

 Africa. Precisely the same phenomenon is presented by birds t. 

 The most characteristic Afrcian families, such as plantain-eaters 

 (Musophagidce), colics (Colidce), and Irrisoridce- barbets, hornbills, 

 secretary-birds, and a number of genera, such as Lanijjrotornis, 

 Bapliaga, Laniarius, and Telejphomis, that are the common and 

 familiar birds of every part of Africa south of the Sahara, are 

 entirely wanting in the Mascarene Islands, including the Seychelles, 

 Mauritius, &c., whilst no fewer than four peculiar families and 

 a number of genera confined to the archipelago replace them. 

 Amongst the Mascarene birds, too, are found several represen- 

 tatives of Oriental genera, or genera closely allied to Oriental 

 types, and without any near Ethiopian relations. Poremost 

 amongst these are certain bulb ills, forming the genera Ixocincla 

 and Tylas, the former composed of species which have been usually 

 referred to the typically Oriental genus Hypsljjetes^ and the latter 

 nearly afiined. In fact, as was shown by Geoffrey St.-Hilaire, and 

 as Hartlaub has since pointed out, there is in the Mascarene avi- 

 fauna a more marked connexion with Indian than with Ethiopian 

 types. In the Seychelles, especially, out of the 7 passerine genera 

 represented by peculiar species, three, Nectarinia, Zosterops, and 

 Tchitrea, are Indian and African, one, Foudia, is Ethiopian, but not 

 Indian, and two, Copsyclms and Hi/psipetcs, or Ixocincla, are Indian, 

 but not African t. 



Another singular case of distribution that corresponds with that 



* ' Island Life,' p. 398, footnote. 



t Hartlaub, ' Die Yogel Madagascars u. d. benachbarten Inselgruppen,' 1877. 



J E. Newton, Ibis, 1867, p. 359. 



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