I 



Of the Moluccas, 401 



gration has not been a recent one, since there has been time 

 for the greater portion of the species to have become changed. 

 We find, also, that many very characteristic New Guinea 

 forms have not entered the Mohiccas at all, while others 

 found in Ceram and Gilolo do not extend so far west as Bouru. 

 Considering, further, the absence of most of the New Guinea 

 mammals from the Moluccas, we are led to the conclusion that 

 these islands are not fragments which have been separated 

 from New Guinea, but form a distinct insular region, which 

 has been upheaved independently at a rather remote eijoch, 

 and during all the mutations it has undergone has been con- 

 stantly receiving immigrants from that great and productive 

 island. The considerable length of time the Moluccas have re- 

 mained isolated is further indicated by the occurrence of two 

 2)eculiar genera of birds, Semioptera and Lycocorax, which are 

 found nowhere else. 



We are able to divide this small archii^elago into two well- 

 marked groups — that of Ceram, including also Bouru, Am- 

 boyna, Banda, and Ke, and that of Gilolo, including Morty, 

 Batchian, Obi, Ternate, and other small islands. These divis- 

 ions have each a considerable number of peculiar species, no 

 less than fifty- five being found in the Ceram group only ; and 

 besides this, most of the separate islands have some species 

 peculiar to themselves. Thus Morty Island has a peculiar 

 kingfisher, honeysucker, and starling ; Ternate has a ground- 

 thrush (Pitta) and a fly-catcher ; Banda has a pigeon, a shrike, 

 and a Pitta ; Ke has two fly-catchers, a Zosterops, a shrike, 

 a king-crow, and a cuckoo ; and the remote Timor-laut, which 

 should probably come into the Moluccan group, has a cocka- 

 too and lory as its only known birds, and both are of peculiar 

 species. 



The Moluccas are especially rich in the parrot tribe, no less 

 than twenty-two species, belonging to ten genera, inhabiting 

 them. Among these is the large red-crested cockatoo, so com- 

 monly seen alive in Europe, two handsome red parrots of the 

 genus Eclectus, and five of the beautiful crimson lories, which 

 are almost exclusively confined to these islands and the New 

 Guinea group. The pigeons are hardly less abundant or beau- 

 tiful, twenty-one species being known, including twelve of 

 the beautiful green fruit-pigeons, the smaller kinds of which 



Cc 



