236 
ON THE GEOaRAPHICAL 
islands. The Naja of the Philippines belongs to the 
ordinary variety of the N. tripndians, which inhabits 
India, and which is constantly different from that of the 
islands in the Straits of Sunda. On the other hand, we 
find in the Philippine Isles, several animals which probably 
do not exist either in Ceylon or in Bengal : of this number 
are the Basilisk, the Monitor bivittatus, and some others. 
New Holland being too little explored, and the objects of 
natural history brought from thence to Europe being all col- 
lected at the same points, it is difficult to speak of the dis- 
tribution of animals in this vast island. All have, else- 
where, heard of the singular productions of that country,* 
a few of which also inhabit Van Diemen’s Land, presenting 
occasionally, in these different localities, differences simi- 
lar to those we noticed between the same animals of seve- 
ral parts of the Indian Archipelago. As to serpents, 
New Holland produces species totally peculiar almost 
without an exception, the greater number of which belong 
to the family of venomous serpents ; no aquatic snakes have 
yet been found there. The distribution of other reptiles in 
that continent offers little remarkable ; but it deserves to 
be noticed, that, with the exception of marine species, it 
affords but a single Chelonian, the Emys longicollis : the 
absence of Land Tortoises is the more remarkable, that 
we find a very considerable number of them in the southern 
extremity of Africa, a country which presents many affini- 
ties with New Holland. We have already stated above, 
that the innumerable islets scattered through the great 
Pacific Ocean do not appear to produce serpents. The 
Mariannes are an exception to this general rule ; and 
Dampier speaks of green serpents which he saw in the 
Galapagos islands. 
We now come to America^ which presents several cu- 
rious facts in regard to the distribution of animals. This 
division of the world is naturally parted into two great 
continents, each of which has a particular fauna ; but 
^ The Kangaroos, the Ornithorhynchus, the Echidna, the Phas- 
colomys, and Phascolarctos, the Dasyurus, the Thylacinus, the Maenurus, 
the Emeu, the Phyllurus, and many others. 
