96 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
large Mammalia common to both, including Rhinoceros Sumatranus , 
R. Sondaicm , Bos Sondaicus , Tapir us Malay anus, Styloceros Muntjao , 
Nccmorhcedus Sumatrensis, Tlrsus Malay anus, &c. } the majority of 
which range as far north as Pegu, or further.* * That the Indian 
Elephant should have participated in the same common range, is 
thus relieved from any plea of improbability ; while the speculation 
that Sumatra was in direct continuity with Ceylon within the period 
of the existing fauna, is beset with unsurmountable difficulties. In 
the view here taken it is also needless, since the species may have 
spread southwards, from a common centre, on both sides of the Bay 
of Bengal, and on its eastern shore into the promontory which for¬ 
merly forked the Indian Ocean. The speculation here contraverted, 
appears to rest upon grounds as fallacious as those which led Blain- 
ville, mainly upon spurious Proboscidian evidence, to conjecture that 
Australia was formerly a dependency of the American continent, f 
§ 10. Asserted occurrence of Mastodon in Australia. 
Next to the Rquidce, the Proboscidians are among the most cos¬ 
mopolitan and widely distributed of Ungulate Mammalia. Dino- 
therium occurs alike in the Miocene deposits of India and Europe; 
while species of Mastodon and Elephant, extinct and living, have 
been found over the whole surface of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and 
in both divisions of the American Continent. On the other hand, as 
has often been remarked before, Australia has a living fauna, so low 
and backward in the scale of organization, that it has struck those 
who have reflected on it, in the light of being an arrested fragment of 
an older world, in which progress was suspended, whilst in the other 
continents it was being steadily sustained, by the appearance of 
higher and higher forms. With the exception of the Dingo, which 
is believed to have accompanied man,* and of a certain number of 
indigenous Eats, the existing mammalian fauna of Australia is exclu¬ 
sively restricted to marsupial forms. The extinct fauna, which has 
been so ably investigated by Professor Owen, so far as it goes, bears 
the same character. The colossal Diprotodon and JTototherium , with 
the carnivorous Thylacoleo , have died out, and the giant Kangaroos, 
* Cantor. ‘ Journ. Asiat. Soc. of Bengal,’ 1846, VoL xv. p. 275. 
f Osteographie. 4 Dinotherium,’ p. 50. 
* Prof. McCoy, in a recent comparison between the ancient and modem natural 
history of Victoria, states that he had identified remains of the Canis Dingo in the 
bone-caverns lately opened beneath the basalt-flows at Mount Macedon. They 
were found associated with those of Macropus Titan , and of recent species of Hyp- 
siprymnus and Hydromys. He infers from this and other arguments that the 
Dingo is an indigenous animal. But there is no evidence that man may not have 
then been an inhabitant of Australia, and the Dingo introduced along with him. 
The latter still stands out, a symbol of isolation. (Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist. 
1862, 3d Ser. Vol. ix. pp. 145, 147 ) 
