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Thus, it is quite conceivable that a pleurodont lizard might have arisen in Madagascar in perfect independence of the similarly-formed American lacertilia: just as certain teeth of carnivorous and insectivorous marsupial animals have been seen most closely to resemble those of carnivorous and insectivorous placental beasts; just as, again, the paddles of the Cetacea resemble, in the fact of a multiplication in the number of the phalanges, the many-jointed feet of extinct marine reptiles, and as the beak of the cuttle-fish or of the tadpole resembles that of birds.
Forms common to Africa and India; to Africa and South America; to China and Australia; to North America and China; to New Zealand and South America; to South America and Tasmania; to South America and Australia. Pleurodont lizards. Insectivorous mammals. Similarity of European and South American frogs Analogy between European salmon and fishes of New Zealand, &c.
Pleurodont lizards are such as have the teeth attached by their sides to the inner surface of the jaw, in contradistinction to acrodont lizards, which have the bases of their teeth anchylosed to the summit of the margin of the jaw. Now pleurodont iguanian lizards abound in the South American region; but nowhere else, and are not as yet known to inhabit any part of the present continent of Africa.
Yet pleurodont lizards, strange to say, are found in Madagascar. This is the more remarkable, inasmuch as we have no evidence yet of the existence in Madagascar of fresh-water fishes common to Africa and South America.
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