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Show 318 PROF. HUXLEY ON THE ALECTOROMORPHAE. [May 14, Others have the converse distribution; that is to say, they exist in Austro-Columbia and over a large part of Arctogaea, but are absent in Australia:- Psittacince, Celeomorphee, Trogonidee, Amphimorphce, among Birds ; and Primates (except Man), Ungulata, Carnivora, Edentata, among the Mammalia. And it is further remarkable that, among these western annectent Mammalia, there are sundry important families, such as the Camelidee, Cervidee, Tapiridee, Ursidee, Subursida:, and (with one or two exceptions) the Melidce and Mustelidee, which are found both in Austro-Columbia and Asiatic Arctogaea, but are absent in South Africa. I am not aware that any important group of birds has the same distribution. Among land-animals, a single group of these western annectent Mammalia, the Echimyini, is found only in Austro-Columbia and South Africa. The genus Manatus, among Mammals, and the order Dipnoi, among Fishes, are aquatic animals with a similarly remarkable distribution. I do not know of any exactly corresponding case among Birds; but I may remark that two most peculiar groups of South African Birds, the Musophagidee and the Struthionidee, come nearer the Austro-Columbian Rhamphastidce and Rheidce than to any other forms. The existence of these western annectent groups, now in many cases confined to the southern parts of the N e w and Old Worlds, and separated by thousands of miles of sea, is utterly unintelligible and inexplicable without the aid of palaeontology, which demonstrates that, in the earlier part of the tertiary epoch, Western and Northern Arctogaea, from Nebraska through Central Europe to the Siwalik Hills, was inhabited by a fauna which, so far as Mammals are concerned, was competent to supply Africa and India with their Apes, their Ungulata, their Carnivora, and to furnish Austro- Columbia with the Proboscidea, Horses, and Machairodus, which it once possessed, and with its existing Tapirs, and Cameline and Marsupial quadrupeds. W e may expect a great deal of important information respecting miocene birds from M . Alphonse Milne-Edwards, who has already demonstrated the existence of several species of Flamingos in France during the miocene epoch, and has thus connected the existing distributional areas of these birds, just as the miocene Tapir of Europe connects the Indian and South-American Tapir. But, it is very interesting to remark, the European miocene and eocene formations have, as yet, yielded no trace of Armadillos or of Sloths, of Kangaroos, Phalangers, Wombats, Dasyures, Thvla-cines, or Monotremes; and, so far as existing evidence may be trusted, it is highly probable that the three great distributional provinces of Arctogaea, Austro-Columbia, and Australasia were as dis |