6 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part I. 
almost identical in climate and in luxuriance of vegetation, but 
their animal life is totally diverse. In the former we have 
tapirs, sloths, and prehensile-tailed monkeys ; in the latter 
elephants, antelopes, and man-like apes; while among birds, 
the toucans, chatterers, and humming-birds of Brazil are re- 
placed by the plantain-eaters, bee-eaters, and sun-birds of Africa. 
Parts of South-temperate America, South Africa, and South 
Australia, correspond closely in climate; yet the birds and 
quadrupeds of these three districts are as completely unlike 
each other as those of any parts of the world that can be 
named. 
If we visit the great islands of the globe, we find that they 
present similar anomalies in their animal productions, for 
while some exactly resemble the nearest continents others are 
widely different. Thus the quadrupeds birds and insects of 
Borneo correspond very closely to those of the Asiatic continent, 
while those of Madagascar are extremely unlike African forms, 
although the distance from the continent is less in the latter 
case than in the former. And if we compare the three great 
islands Sumatra, Borneo, and Celebes — lying as it were side by 
side in the same ocean — we find that the two former, although 
furthest apart, have almost identical productions, while the two 
latter, though closer together, are more unlike than Britain and 
Japan situated in different oceans and separated by the largest 
of the great continents. 
These examples will illustrate the kind of questions it is the 
object of the present work to deal with. Every continent, 
every country, and every island on the globe, offer similar 
problems of greater or less complexity and interest, and the 
time has now arrived when their solution can be attempted with 
some prospect of success. Many years study of this class of 
subjects has convinced me that there is no short and easy 
method of dealing with them ; because they are, in their very 
nature, the visible outcome and residual product of the whole 
past history of the earth. If we take the organic productions 
of a small island, or of any very limited tract of country such 
as a moderate-sized country parish, we have, in their relations 
and affinities — in the fact that they are there and others are 
