The Cassowary Is Distinct; The
Kingfishers, Parrots, Pigeons, Flycatchers, Honeysuckers,
Thrushes, And Cuckoos, Are Almost Always Quite Distinct Species.
More
Than this, at least twenty genera, which are common to New
Guinea and Aru, do not extend into Ceram, indicating
With a force
which every naturalist will appreciate, that the two latter
countries have received their faunas in a radically different
manner. Again, a true kangaroo is found in Aru, and the same
species occurs in Mysol, which is equally Papuan in its
productions, while either the same, or one closely allied to it,
inhabits New Guinea; but no such animal is found in Ceram, which
is only sixty miles from Mysol. Another small marsupial animal
(Perameles doreyanus) is common to Aru and New Guinea. The
insects show exactly the same results. The butterflies of Aru are
all either New Guinea species, or very slightly modified forms;
whereas those of Ceram are more distinct than are the birds of
the two countries.
It is now generally admitted that we may safely reason on such
facts as those, which supply a link in the defective geological
record. The upward and downward movements which any country has
undergone, and the succession of such movements, can be
determined with much accuracy; but geology alone can tell us
nothing of lands which have entirely disappeared beneath the
ocean. Here physical geography and the distribution of animals
and plants are of the greatest service. By ascertaining the depth
of the seas separating one country from another, we can form some
judgment of the changes which are taking place.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 263 of 412
Words from 70650 to 70912
of 111511
