Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

OCEANIC FAUNA. 37Old World except ia the Indo-Chinese lands, which in this respect may beconsidered a dependency of Australasia, are here represented by no less thanthirteen genera and over a hundred species. On the other hand, there is a totalabsence of apes, pachyderms, and riuninants, while the carnivora, rodents, andedentata are far from numerous.In its lower fauna Australia is no less original, its birds and Lizards being quitedistinct from those of the Asiatic continent. New Zealand also forms a separatezone, which has long been destitute of any characteristic mammals except a rat,and perhaps one species of otter. On the other hand, it possessed two remarkablefamilies of bu'ds, the apteryx and dinornis, which, Kke the dodo of Mauritius, haveperished since the arrival of man. New Zealand had no less than fifteen speciesof these birds, which belong to the ostrich family.Farther east the Polynesian islands are completely destitute of mammals, beyondsome small species of bats and rodents. Reptiles are also rare ; while bii'ds, thanksto their power of flight and natation, have been distributed in considerable numbersthroughout the archipelagoes. In the same way man himself, passing in his lightoutriggers beyond the straits and broader marine channels, has gradually colonisednearly all the islands of Pol}Tiesia.Inhabitantsof the Oceanic Regions.Before the arrival of the Europeans, the oceanic islandershad already establishedcommunication with each other, and long migrations had taken place, inone direction towards Madagascar, in the other towards the remote eastern islandsof the Pacific. The populations of diverse origin occupying the Eastern Archipelago,who are connected either by affinity or by commercial relations ^^'ith the people ofSouth-east Asia, have long played the part of agents in promoting the intercoursethat has been maintained from one extremitj' of the ocean to the other. Thenatives of Madagascar are at least partly related to the Malays of the EasternArchipelago, who have gradually spread their domain from island to island eastwards,everywhere intermingling with the aborigines, or else colonising unoccupiedlands.Nearly all the idioms spoken throughout this vast domain, from Madagascarto Easter Island, from the African to the American waters, are regarded as more orless closely related members of the one great Malayo-Polynesian linguistic family.Nevertheless the extreme branches of this widespread family present profounddifferences, while from the connection must be altogether excluded all theAustralian and extract Tasmanian languages, and many also current amongst thePapuan and Negrito inhabitants of New Guinea, the Philippines, the Andaman,Nicobar, and a few other groups.But while their common speech attests a general movement of migrationthroughout the whole extent of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the marked contrastin their phj'sical appearance indicates such a great diversity of origin, that manywriters have grouped the oceanic populations in fimdamentally distinct brown ordark races.But however this be, such physical differences between the inhabitants