417 



ISLAKD LIFE 



PART II 



still exists scattered over a wide area; but they are 

 nowhere so abundant as in the island of Madagascar. 

 They are found from West Africa to India, Ceylon, and 

 the Malay Archipelago, consisting of a number of isolated 

 genera and species, which appear to maintain their 

 existence by their nocturnal and arboreal habits, and by 

 haunting dense forests. It can hardly be said that the 

 African forms of lemurs are more nearly allied to those 

 of Madagascar than are the Asiatic, the whole series 

 appearing to be the disconnected fragments of a once 

 more compact and extensive group of animals. 



Next, we have about a dozen species of Insectivora, 

 consisting of one shrew, a group distributed over all the 

 great continents; and five genera of a peculiar family, 

 Centetidse, which family exists nowhere else on the globe 

 except in the two largest West Indian Islands, Cuba and 

 Hayti, thus adding still further to our embarrassment 

 in seeking for the original home of the Madagascar fauna. 



We then come to the Carnivora, which are represented 

 by a peculiar cat-like animal, Cryptoprocta, forming a 

 distinct family, and having no close allies in any part of the 

 globe ; and eight civets belonging to four peculiar genera. 

 Here we first meet with some decided indications of an 

 African origin ; for the civet family is more abundant 

 in this continent than in Asia, and some of the Madagascar 

 genera seem to be decidedly allied to African groups — 

 as, for example, Eupleres to Suricata and Crossarchus.^ 



The Rodents consist only of four rats and mice of 

 peculiar genera, one of which is said to be allied to an 

 American genus ; and lastly we have a river-hog of the 

 African genus Potamochserus, and a small sub-fossil 

 hippopotamus, both of which being semi-aquatic animals 

 might easily have reached the island from Africa, by 

 way of the Comoros, without any actual land connect! on.^ 



Reptiles of Madagascar. — Passing over the birds for 

 the present, as not so clearly demonstrating land-connec- 



1 See Dr. J. E. Gray's " Revision of the Viverridse, " in Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1864, p. 507. 



2 Some of the Bats of Madagascar and East Africa are said to have their 

 nearest allies in Australia. (See Dobson in Nature, Vol. XXX. p. 575.) 



