OF THE MALAYAN REGION. 31 



Antelope of obscure affinities, but quite uuli k e anything else in the whole archipelago or 

 in India ; and Babiritsa, an altogether abnormal wild Pig. With a rather limited bird 

 population, Celebes has an immense preponderance of species confined to it, and has also 

 five remarkable genera {Meropogon, Streptocitta, Enodes, Scissirostrunii and Megacepha- 

 lon) entirely restricted to its narrow limits, as well as two others {Prioniturus and Basi- 

 lornis) which only range to a single island beyond it. 



Mr. Smith's elaborate tables of the distribution of Malayan Hymenoptera (see ' Proc. 

 linn. Soc' Zool. vol. vii.) show that, out of the large number of 301 species collected in 

 Celebes, 190 (or nearly two-thirds) were absolutely restricted to it, although Borneo, on 

 one side, and the various islands of the Moluccas on the other, were equally well ex- 

 plored by me ; and no less than twelve of the genera are not found in any other island of 

 the archipelago. I have just shown in the present paper that, in the Papilionidae, it has 

 far more species of its own than any other island, and a greater proportion of pecuMar 

 species than many of the large groups of islands in the archipelago — and that it gives to 

 a large number of the species and varieties which inhabit it, 1st, an increase of size, 

 and, 2nd, a peculiar modification in the form of the wings, which stamp upon the most 

 dissimilar insects a mark distinctive of their common birth-place. 



Wliat, I would ask, are we to do with phenomena such as these ? Are we to rest 

 content with that very simple, but at the same time very unsatisfying explanation, that 

 all these insects and other animals were created exactly m they are, and originally placed 

 exactly where they are, by the inscrutable will of their Creator, and that we have nothing 

 to do but to register the facts and wonder ? Was this single island selected for a fan- 

 tastic display of creative power, merely to excite a child-like and unreasoning admira- 

 tion ? Is all this appearance of gradual modification by the action of natural causes — a 

 modification the successive steps of which we can almost trace — all delusive ? Is this 

 harmony between the most diverse groups, all presenting analogous phenomena, and 

 indicating a dependence upon physical' changes of which we have independent evi- 

 dence, aU false testimony ? If I could think so, the study of nature would have lost for 

 me its greatest charm. I should feel as wovild the geologist, if you could convince him 

 that his interpretation of the earth's past history was all a delusion — that strata were 

 never formed in the primeval ocean, and that the fossils he so carefully collects and 

 studies are no true record of a former living world, but were all created just as they 

 now are, and in the rocks where he now finds them. 



I must here express my own belief that none of these phenomena, however apparently 

 isolated pr insignificant, can ever stand alone — that not the wing of a butterfly can 

 change in form, or vary in colour, except in harmony with, and as a part of, the grand 

 march of nature. I believe, therefore, that all the curious phenomena I have just re- 

 capitulated are immediately dependent on the last series of changes, organic and inor- 

 ganic, in these regions ; and as tbe phenomena presented by the island of Celebes differ 

 from those of aU the surrounding islands, it can, I conceive, only be because the past 

 history of Celebes has been to some extent unique and different from theirs. We must 

 have much more evidence to determine exactly in what that difference has consisted. 

 At present, I only see my way clear to one deduction, viz., that Celebes represents one 



