572 



MR. i\ BAT ON THE GEOGKAPHICAL 



peninsula, and which may have embraced the Andamans and 

 Nicobars. 



Mr. Kurz ( Journ. As. Soc. 1876, p. 105) observes that " the 

 Nicobars form a link in the chain of islands that stretches up from 

 Sumatra to the Arracan Tomahs (mountains), and they are in all 

 probability the remnants of a mountain-range that connected 

 Sumatra (and more especially the Nias Islands, where the same 

 sandstone prevails as that of the Andamans and Arracan) and 

 Arracan at a time when the sea covered the vast alluvial plains of 

 the Granges and the Indus, thus rendering Hindustan an island 

 subsequent to its probable connexion with Africa." 



Were the chain of mountains carried from about the Nicobars 

 to the west and joined to Ceylon, we should thus have the means 

 of communication between the Malay peninsula and the Ceylon 

 region complete : we could in this manner understand how fresh- 

 water fishes might be absent from the subregion of Hindustan, 

 but present on either side, as Ceylon and Burma. Perhaps, as 

 has been advanced, the Bay of Bengal was a portion of a large 

 continent now submerged, and it was by that route that the Cey- 

 lonese subregion received its Oriental forms of animal life at a 

 time when the plains of Hindustan were submerged. 



That this region did not extend to Madagascar or the Mauritius 

 would also appear to be demonstrated by the freshwater fishes ; 

 for we do not find (unless they have been introduced) E-hyncho- 

 bdellidae, Ophiocephalid^e, nor the genera Poly acanthus, Osphro- 

 men us, Trichogaster, nor any of the Indian genera of the Siluridae, 

 Cyprinodontidse, Cyprinidsp, or Symbranchidfe \ 



But in the higher elevations of the western Grhauts I have ob- 

 served that forms occur similar to those of the Himalayas, and 

 also having representatives on the Malay peninsula and in the 

 Malay archipelago ; I have also remarked upon the genus Scaphio- 

 don extending from the rivers of Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor 

 to Sind, where they have representatives in the hills, and also to 

 the Salt range of the Punjaub. Passing along the western 

 Grhauts, we again come upon the same genus, which extends to 

 the most southern extremity of the Neilgherries^. In a similar 



1 See 'Poissons de Madagascai',' Bleeker, 1874. 



^ I may also suggest an alternative route. Homaloftera Brucei and H. macu- 

 lata are both found in tlie western Ghauts and also on the Himalayas. The 

 genus exists in Java and Sumatra ; we can also trace it up the Tenasserim coast, 

 but it is absent from the Hindustan subregion. It would seem to have spread 



