CHAP. XIX.] 
THE MADAGASCAR GROUP. 
399 
what seems an easy solution of a difficult problem, and has 
received an appropriate and easily remembered name, long after 
it has been proved to be untenable. 
It is now more than four years since I first showed, by a 
careful examination of all the facts to be accounted for, that 
the hypothesis of a Lemurian continent was alike unnecessary 
to explain one portion of the facts, and inadequate to explain 
the remaining portion. 1 Since that time I have seen no 
attempt even to discuss the question on general grounds in 
opposition to my views, nor on the other hand have those who 
have hitherto supported the hypothesis taken any opportunity 
of acknowledging its weakess and inutility. I have therefore 
here explained my reasons for rejecting it somewhat more fully 
and in a more popular form, in the hope that a check may thus 
be placed on the continued re-statement of this unsound theory 
as if it were one of the accepted conclusions of modern science. 
The Mascarene Islands . 2 — In the Geographical Distribution of 
Animals , a summary is given of all that was known of the 
zoology of the various islands near Madagascar, which to some ex- 
tent partake of its peculiarities, and with it form the Malagasy 
sub-region of the Ethiopian region. As no great additions have 
since been made to our knowledge of the fauna of these islands, 
and my object in this volume being more especially to illustrate 
the mode of solving distributional problems by means of the 
most suitable examples, I shall now confine myself to pointing 
out how far the facts presented by these outlying islands 
support the views already enunciated with regard to the origin 
of the Madagascar fauna. 
The Comoro Islands. — This group of islands is situated 
nearly midway between the northern extremity of Madagascar 
and the coast of Africa. The four chief islands vary between 
sixteen and forty miles in length, the largest being 180 miles from 
the coast of Africa, while one or two smaller islets are less than 
100 miles from Madagascar. All are volcanic, Great Comoro being 
1 Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vol. I., p. 272—292. 
2 The term “ Mascarene y is used here in an extended sense, to include 
all the islands near Madagascar which resemble it in their animal and 
vegetable productions. 
