CHAP. XXIV.] 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 



509 



the past history of the African and Asiatic continents, which it 

 is shown are such as to account for all the main peculiarities of 

 the fauna of these islands without having recourse to the 

 hypothesis of a now-submerged Lemurian continent. Consider- 

 able evidence is further adduced to show that " Lemuria " is a 

 myth, since not only is its existence unnecessary, but it can be 

 proved that it would not explain the actual facts of distribution. 

 The origin of the interesting Mascarene wingless birds is dis- 

 cussed, and the main peculiarities of the remarkable flora 

 of Madagascar and the Mascarene islands pointed out ; while it 

 is shown that all these phenomena are to be explained on the 

 general principles of the permanence of the great oceans and 

 the comparatively slight fluctuations of the land area, and by 

 taking account of established palaeontological facts. 



There remain two other islands — Celebes and New Zealand, 

 which are classed as " anomalous," the one because it is almost 

 impossible to place it in any of the six zoological regions, or 

 determine whether it has ever been actually joined to a 

 continent — the other because it combines the characteristics 

 of continental and oceanic islands. 



The peculiarities of the Celebesian fauna have already been 

 dwelt upon in several previous works, but they are so remark- 

 able and so unique that they cannot be omitted in a treatise 

 on " Insular Faunas ; " and here, as in the case of Borneo and 

 Java, fuller consideration and the application of the general 

 principles laid down in our First Part, lead to a solution of the 

 problem at once more simple and more satisfactory than any 

 which have been previously proposed. I now look upon Celebes 

 as an outlying portion of the great Asiatic continent of Miocene 

 times, which either by submergence or some other cause had 

 lost the greater portion of its animal inhabitants, and since then 

 has remained more or less completely isolated from every other 

 land. It has thus preserved a fragment of a very ancient fauna 

 along with a number of later types which have reached it from 

 surrounding islands by the ordinary means of dispersal. This 

 sufficiently explains all the peculiar affinities of its animals, 

 though the peculiar and distinctive characters of some of them 

 remain as mysterious as ever. 



