Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic)
Dr. Hartlaub's "Birds of Madagascar," although an excellent and original scientific work, is quite of the "Handbook" character--that is it gives us a résumé of all that is yet known concerning the Avifauna of Madagascar and the appendent islands in a cheap and portable volume--such as may be conveniently carried in the hand of any naturalist visiting those regions. Fifteen years ago Dr. Hartlaub issued a volume of similar character,1 but much smaller in dimensions. To understand how great has been the advance lately made in our knowledge of the birds of these regions, we have only to compare the "Ornithologischer Beitrag" of 1861 with the "Vögel Madagascars" of 1877. Since the publication of the former work Holland has sent forth Pollen and Van Dam, France Grandidier, and England Crossley and Newton, into that rich and still imperfectly explored field, from which every one of them has reaped an abundant harvest.
The "Lemurian Avifauna,"2 according to Dr. Hartlaub, is now known to contain 284 species of birds. Of these 220 are found in Madagascar itself, and 104 out of these 220 are absolutely restricted to that island. Moreover, of these 104 birds not less than ninety are so abnormal in structure that it has been found necessary to refer them to peculiar genera. Compared with Madagascar itself the appendent island groups are poor in species, although in every case there are many interesting forms amongst their winger inhabitants. The Comoro Islands muster only some forty-four species3 of birds, Mauritius about sixty, of which fifteen or sixteen have been introduced by man's agency, and Bourbon about the same number, while Rodriguez appears to have only about twenty-five species now existing in it, of which four or five are certainly recent introductions. But we cannot speak of the recent ornithology of these islands without a passing allusion to the singular forms--now mostly known to us by their fossil remains--which have become but very recently extinct, and the gradual rediscovery of which must ever rank among the most interesting scientific achievements of the present epoch. Besides the Dodo of Mauritius and its brother, the Pezophaps, of Rodriguez, we now know that divers curious parrots (Necropsittacus and Lophopsittacus) and extraordinary rails (Miserythrus and Aphanopteryx) lived in those islands not long ago, and that other strange fowls were found in the same company. Two of the remarkable forms of the Mascarene Islands (Coracopsis mascarina and Fregilupus varius) have indeed become exterminated so recently that examples of their skins are still to be found in some of our older museums.
Let us now see what Dr. Hartlaub's conclusions as to the general facies of the avifauna of Madagascar and it appendent islands point to.
"Many years ago," he tells us, "the late distinguished naturalist, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, remarked that, if one had to classify the island of Madagascar exclusively on zoological considerations, and without reference to its geographical situation, it could be shown to be neither Asiatic not African, but quite different from either, and almost a fourth continent. And this fourth continent could be further proved to be, as regards its fauna, much more different from Africa, which lies so near to it, than from India, which is so far away. With these words, the correctness and pregnancy of which later investigations tend to bring into their full light, the French naturalist first stated the interesting problem for the solution of which an hypothesis based on scientific knowledge has recently been propounded.
To prove this position, Dr. Hartlaub in his interesting introduction to the present work, recapitulates the points in which the avifauna of "Lemuria" approximates to that of India and diverges from that of Africa.
"But the negative evidence," he adds, "is still stronger in the same direction. The groups of Musophagidæ, Coliidæ, Lamprotornithinæ, Buphagidæ, Capitonidæ, Indicatoridæ, Bucerotidæ, and Otidinæ, so eminently characteristic of of Africa, are entirely absent in Madagascar, besides the genera Gypogeranus, Helotarsus, Coracias, Crateropus, Irrisor, Bradyornis, Dryoscopus, Laniarius, Telephonus, Prionops, Platystira, Saxicola, Picathartes, Balæniceps, and others, which are remarkably rich in individuals and species in Africa. Besides this, Larks and Chats, which in the African fauna are specially prominent on account of their numerous forms as well as regards their individual and specific abundance, are only represented by a single species in Madagascar itself, and in the rest of the sub-region not at all.
Such are Dr. Hartlaub's matured views on a subject which he has long had before him, and is, above all persons, qualified to speak.
In concluding our notice we have only to thank him on the part of ornithologists for his convenient and useful volume, and to wish that the Avifauna of many other countries were treated of in a similar manner.
2. Madagascar and its islands were proposed to be called Lemuria, in 1864, by Sclater, as being supposed remnants of the old "Terra Lemurum," wherein this peculiar form of mammalian life had its origin. The name has been adopted by Haeckel and other writers on Distribution. [[on p. 498]]
3. Since Dr. Hartlaub's work was published, an important addition has been made to the Avifauna of the Comoros by Mr. Edward Newton, in his memoir of the birds of the Island Anjuian. (P.Z.S. 1877, p. 205 et. seqq.) [[on p. 498]]