Judging, Therefore, By The Opinions Of The Eminent Naturalists
Who Have Described And Classified Its Birds, We Find That Many
Of
the species have no near allies whatsoever in the countries which
surround Celebes, but are either quite isolated, or
Indicate
relations with such distant regions as New Guinea, Australia,
India, or Africa. Other cases of similar remote affinities
between the productions of distant countries no doubt exist, but
in no spot upon the globe that I am yet acquainted with, do so
many of them occur together, or do they form so decided a feature
in the natural history of the country.
The Mammalia of Celebes are very few in number, consisting of
fourteen terrestrial species and seven bats. Of the former no
less than eleven are peculiar, including two which there is
reason to believe may have been recently carried into other
islands by man. Three species which have a tolerably wide range
in the Archipelago, are: (1) The curious Lemur, Tarsius spectrum,
which is found in all the islands as far westward as Malacca; (2)
the common Malay Civet, Viverra tangalunga, which has a still
wider range; and (3) a Deer, which seems to be the same as the
Rusa hippelaphus of Java, and was probably introduced by man at
an early period.
The more characteristic species are as follow:
Cynopithecus nigrescens, a curious baboon-like monkey if not a
true baboon, which abounds all over Celebes, and is found nowhere
else but in the one small island of Batchian, into which it has
probably been introduced accidentally.
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