30 
Annals of the Tkansvaal Museum. 
descendants of a fauna which was probably common to the whole 
of the southern Ethiopian region in early tertiary times : moreover, it 
is the only large portion of that vast area which has been thus isolated 
from the world. Unfortunately, however, there is a great lack of 
palaeontological data with which to supplement and check the deductions 
which we may draw from the present-day Malagasy fauna. The pub- 
lished lists of that fauna reveal the fact that the main groups of vertebrata 
are represented in Madagascar by an unusually small number of forms, 
and these are often of ancient type; for instance, amongst reptiles there 
are no Lacertidae, no Agamidae, and no Varanidae ; there are no viperine 
nor proteroglyphous snakes, and of freshwater fish, according to Mr. 
Boulenger, there are only sixteen species. These facts seem to indicate 
that the larger Ethiopian area of the early tertiary period was correspond- 
ingly poor in present day types. 
As regards the relationships of the Madagascar fauna of to-day, 
we know that it is for the most part Ethiopian and that also there 
are a few Indian and American types, but it is to be regretted 
that only in a few groups of animals have these various relation- 
ships been submitted to a thoroughly critical examination. A very 
suggestive inquiry into the affinities of the sub-fossil Lemuridae of Mada- 
gascar has been recently published by Ur. Standing (Trans. Zool. Soc., 
Vol. 18, No. 2). Some of his conclusions which are of interest to us from 
our present point of view, are as follows: “In the main the affinities of 
the Malagasy fossils are with the primates of South America, but never- 
theless there are certain features which find their closest analogy in various 
old-world forms”; “the incisors of Archaeoiemur (of Madagascar) are 
almost identical with those of various African genera”; and “the various 
genera of the Lemuridae and the new-world monkeys seem to be survivals 
of the primate stock formerly inhabiting the ancient southern land-mass 
which included South America, Madagascar and a part at least of South 
Africa and India ” : and he concludes that in giving rise to the Malagasy 
lemurs, this early primate stock, as a result of isolation being removed 
from competition with the dominant mammalian groups which spread 
over other parts of the world, experienced an arrest of brain development 
and perhaps even a retrogressive evolution : and lastly, it is no longer 
possible to separate primates into the two sub-orders Anthropoidea and 
Lemuroidea. In the same work Ur. Elliot Smith writes : " the brain 
features of the Prosimiae are very uniform”, and the larger species of 
Galaginae have a type of brain almost identical with that of the Lemuridae, 
whilst Garnett’s Galago and Loris have many brain features in common ” ; 
and further “in Propithecus, Lemur, Loris, Tarsius, the Hapalidae, and 
the Cebidae there is a complete series of transitional stages leading up to 
the conditions met with in the old-world apes and man”. This investiga- 
tion clearly reveals the fundamental affinity of the Lemuridae with the 
American monkeys, but it is important to note that there is a still closer 
affinity between certain elements of the Malagasy and South African 
faunas as shown in the sub-family Galaginae. 
The case of the Madagascar boine snakes, which are generally 
supposed to be of pronounced American relationship, has been dealt with 
