CHAP. XIX THE MADAGASCAR GROUP 



426 



The final disappearance of these now sunken islands 

 does not, in all probability, date back to a very remote 

 epoch ; and this exactly accords with the fact that some of 

 the birds, as well as the fruit-bats of the genus Pteropus, 

 are very closely allied to Indian species, if not actually 

 identical, others being distinct species of the same genera. 

 The fact that not one closely-allied species or even genus 

 of Indian or Malayan mammals is found in Madagascar, 

 sufficiently proves that it is no land-connection that has 

 brought about this small infusion of Indian birds and bats ; 

 while we have sufficiently shown, that, when we go back 

 to remote geological times no land-connection in this 

 direction was necessary to explain the phenomena of the 

 distribution of the Lemurs and Insectivora. A land-con- 

 nection with some continent was undoubtedly necessary, 

 or there would have been no mammalia at all in Mada- 

 gascar ; and the nature of its fauna on the whole, no less 

 than the moderate depth of the intervening strait and the 

 comparative approximation of the opposite shores, clearly 

 indicate that the connection was with Africa. 



Concluding Bemarhs on " Lemioria!' — I have gone into 

 this question in some detail, because Dr. Hartlaub's 

 criticism on my views has been reproduced in a scientific 

 periodical,^ and the supposed Lemurian continent is 

 constantly referred to by quasi-scientific writers, as well as 

 by naturalists and geologists, as if its existence had been 

 demonstrated by facts, or as if it were absolutely necessary 

 to postulate such a land in order to account for the entire 

 series of phenomena connected with the Madagascar fauna, 

 and especially with the distribution of the Lemuridse.^ I 



1 The Ibis, 1877, p. 334. 



2 In a paper read before the Geological Society in 1874, Mr. H. F. Blan- 

 ford, from the similarity of the fossil plants and reptiles, supposed that 

 India and South Africa had been connected by a continent, "and remained 

 so connected with some short intervals from the Permian up to the end of 

 the Miocene period," and Mr. Woodward expressed his satisfaction with 

 "this further evidence derived from the fossil flora of the Mesozoic series of 

 India in corroboration of the former existence of an old submerged conti- 

 nent — Lemuria. " 



Those who have read the preceding chapters of the present work will 

 not need to have pointed out to them how utterly inconclusive is the frag- 

 mentary evidence derived from such remote periods (even if there were no 

 evidence on the other side) as indicating geographical changes. The notion 



F F 



