362 



ISLAND LIFE. 



[part it. 



and species of the higher animals is, that they have been 

 subjected to a great amount of submersion in recent times, 

 greatly reducing their area, and causing, no doubt, the ex- 

 tinction of a considerable portion of their fauna. This is not 

 a mere hypothesis, but is supported by direct evidence ; for I am 

 informed by Mr. Everett, who has made extensive explorations 

 in the islands, that almost everywhere are found large tracts of 

 elevated coral-reefs, containing shells similar to those living in 

 the adjacent seas ; an indisputable proof of recent elevation. 



Concluding remarhs on the Malay Islands. — This completes our 

 sketch of the great Malay islands, the seat of the typical 

 Malayan fauna. It has been shown that the peculiarities 

 presented by the individual islands may be all sufficiently well 

 explained by a very simple and comparatively unimportant series 

 of geographical changes, combined with a limited amount of 

 change of climate towards the northern tropic. Beginning in late 

 Miocene times when the deposits on the south coast of Java 

 were upraised, we suppose a general elevation of the whole of the 

 extremely shallow seas uniting what are now Sumatra, Java, 

 Borneo, and the Philippines with the Asiatic continent, and 

 forming that extended equatorial area in which the typical 

 Malayan fauna was developed. After a long period of stability, 

 giving ample time for the specialisation of so many peculiar 

 types, the Philippines were first separated ; then at a con- 

 'siderably later period Java ; a little later Sumatra and Borneo ; 

 and finally the islands south of Singapore to Banca and Biliton. 

 This one simple series of elevations and subsidences, combined 

 with the changes of climate already referred to, and such local 

 elevations and depressions as must undoubtedly have occurred, 

 appears sufficient to have brought about the curious, and at first 

 sight puzzling, relations, of the faunas of Java and the Philip- 

 pines, as compared with those of the larger islands. 



We will now pass on to the consideration of two other groups 

 which offer features of special interest, and which will complete 

 our illustrative survey of recent continental islands. 



