I Allude To The Absence Of Several Groups Which Are
Found On Both Sides Of It, In The Indo-Malay Islands As Well As
In The Moluccas; And Which Thus Seem To Be Unable, From Some
Unknown Cause, To Obtain A Footing In The Intervening Island.
In
Birds we have the two families of Podargidae and Laniadae, which
range over the whole Archipelago and into Australia, and which
yet have no representative in Celebes.
The genera Ceyx among
Kingfishers, Criniger among Thrushes, Rhipidura among
Flycatchers, Calornis among Starlings, and Erythrura among
Finches, are all found in the Moluccas as well as in Borneo and
Java - but not a single species belonging to any one of them is
found in Celebes. Among insects, the large genus of Rose-chafers,
Lomaptera, is found in every country and island between India and
New Guinea, except Celebes. This unexpected absence of many
groups, from one limited district in the very centre of their
area of distribution, is a phenomenon not altogether unique, but,
I believe, nowhere so well marked as in this case; and it
certainly adds considerably to the strange character of this
remarkable island.
The anomalies and eccentricities in the natural history of
Celebes which I have endeavoured to sketch in this chapter, all
point to an origin in a remote antiquity. The history of extinct
animals teaches us that their distribution in time and in space
are strikingly similar. The rule is, that just as the productions
of adjacent areas usually resemble each other closely, so do the
productions of successive periods in the same area; and as the
productions of remote areas generally differ widely, so do the
productions of the same area at remote epochs. We are therefore
led irresistibly to the conclusion, that change of species, still
more of generic and of family form, is a matter of time. But time
may have led to a change of species in one country, while in
another the forms have been more permanent, or the change may
have gone on at an equal rate but in a different manner in both.
In either case, the amount of individuality in the productions of
a district will be to some extent a measure of the time that a
district has been isolated from those that surround it. Judged by
this standard, Celebes must be one of the oldest parts of the
Archipelago. It probably dates from a period not only anterior to
that when Borneo, Java, and Sumatra were separated from the
continent, but from that still more remote epoch when the land
that now constitutes these islands had not risen above the ocean.
Such an antiquity is necessary, to account for the number of
animal forms it possesses, which show no relation to those of
India or Australia, but rather with those of Africa; and we are
led to speculate on the possibility of there having once existed
a continent in the Indian Ocean which might serve as a bridge to
connect these distant countries. Now it is a curious fact, that
the existence of such a land has been already thought necessary,
to account for the distribution of the curious Quadrumana forming
the family of the Lemurs. These have their metropolis in
Madagascar, but are found also in Africa, in Ceylon, in the
peninsula of India, and in the Malay Archipelago as far as
Celebes, which is its furthest eastern limit. Dr. Sclater has
proposed for the hypothetical continent connecting these distant
points, and whose former existence is indicated by the Mascarene
islands and the Maldive coral group, the name of Lemuria. Whether
or not we believe in its existence in the exact form here
indicated, the student of geographical distribution must see in
the extraordinary and isolated productions of Celebes, proof of
the former existence of some continent from whence the ancestors
of these creatures, and of many other intermediate forms, could
have been derived.
In this short sketch of the most striking peculiarities of the
Natural History of Celebes, I have been obliged to enter much
into details that I fear will have been uninteresting to the
general reader, but unless I had done so, my exposition would have
lost much of its force and value. It is by these details alone
that I have been able to prove the unusual features that Celebes
presents to us. Situated in the very midst of an Archipelago, and
closely hemmed in on every side by islands teeming with varied
forms of life, its productions have yet a surprising amount of
individuality. While it is poor in the actual number of its
species, it is yet wonderfully rich in peculiar forms, many of
which are singular or beautiful, and are in some cases absolutely
unique upon the globe. We behold here the curious phenomenon of
groups of insects changing their outline in a similar manner when
compared with those of surrounding islands, suggesting some
common cause which never seems to have acted elsewhere in exactly
the same way. Celebes, therefore, presents us with a most
striking example of the interest that attaches to the study of
the geographical distribution of animals. We can see that their
present distribution upon the globe is the result of all the more
recent changes the earth's surface has undergone; and, by a
careful study of the phenomena, we are sometimes able to deduce
approximately what those past changes must have been in order to
produce the distribution we find to exist. In the comparatively
simple case of the Timor group, we were able to deduce these
changes with some approach to certainty. In the much more
complicated case of Celebes, we can only indicate their general
nature, since we now see the result, not of any single or recent
change only, but of a whole series of the later revolutions which
have resulted in the present distribution of land in the Eastern
Hemisphere.
CHAPTER XIX.
BANDA.
(DECEMBER 1857, MAY 1859, APRIL 1861.)
THE Dutch mail steamer in which I travelled from Macassar to
Banda and Amboyna was a roomy and comfortable vessel, although it
would only go six miles an hour in the finest weather.
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