DISTRIBUTIOlf OF OPHIDIANS. 
227 
appears to be constant in all these localities. The Homa- 
lopsis of Schneider, which inhabits India even to New 
Guinea, presents, in these different localities, numerous 
petty differences, of which the greatest number appear ac- 
cidental. The Great Two -rayed Python comes from the 
Straits of Sunda, and from China ; it inhabits the two pe- 
ninsulaB of India, the isle of Ceylon, and is found even in 
Senegambia, probably existing in a great part of intertro- 
pical Africa. I consider all those Pythons as pertaining 
to the same species ; but I know not if several naturalists 
may not perhaps discover various differences between indi- 
viduals from these different places, sufficient, in their eyes, 
to establish several subspecies, which will necessarily in- 
volve the establishment of the species as a subgenus. The 
Elaps furcatus and E. bivirgatus present, at Sumatra, a 
different arrangement of colours from those in Java. 
Finally, I could fill a separate volume in describing all the 
minute modifications experienced, in those different regions, 
by each isolated family of the same species of animals, of 
which the number is so immense in that part of the world. 
Each of these regions, however, produces species which 
are peculiar to itself, or which are only found in some 
of them. All the world knows that the islands of Su- 
matra and Borneo produce several animals, and some of 
those too of large size, which are not found in any other 
point of that Archipelago, not even in Java, which, on the 
other hand, produces certain animals which do not appear 
to inhabit the other islands. One is tempted to consider 
the geological constitution of the land as determining the 
distribution of animals ; but experience shews us, that it 
has only a secondary or indirect influence, inasmuch as it 
modifies the nature of the soil, or as it determines the age 
of those islands or regions. The climate, which does not 
always influence even the distribution of plants, does not 
generally present an obstacle to that of animals, particularly 
where there is a concurrence of the other conditions neces- 
sary to their existence, and when they can find, throughout 
the year, the food which Nature designed for them.^ It is 
* The Orang-outan and the Semnopithecus nasutus, for example, live 
