420 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [PART III. 
Taking all the facts into consideration, I would suggest as the 
most probable explanation, that if the Moluccas ever formed part 
of the main Papuan land, they were separated at an early date, 
and subsequently so greatly submerged as to destroy a large 
proportion of their fauna. They have since risen, and have 
probably been larger than at present, and rather more closely 
approximated to the parent land, whence they received a con- 
siderable immigration of such animals as were adapted to cross 
narrow seas. This gave them several Papuan forms, but still 
left them without a number of the types more especially con- 
fined to the forest depths, or powerful enough to combat the 
gales which often blow weaker flyers out to sea. Most of the 
birds whose absence from the Moluccas is so conspicuous belong 
to one or other of these classes. 
Among the most characteristic birds of the Moluccas are the 
handsome crimson lories of the genera Loriws and Hos. These 
are found in every island (but not in Celebes or the Timor 
group); and a fine species of Hos, peculiar to the small islands of 
Siau and Sanguir, just north of Celebes, obliges us to place 
these with the Moluccas instead of with the former island, to 
which they seem most naturally to belong. The crimson parrots 
of the genus Lelectus are almost equally characteristic of the 
Moluccas, and add greatly to the brilliancy of the ornithology of 
these favoured islands. 
Reptiles—The Reptiles, so far as known, appear to agree in 
their distribution with the other vertebrates. In some small 
collections from Ceram there were no less than six of the genera 
peculiar to the Australian region, and which were before only 
known from Australia itself. These are, of snakes, Lasts and 
Enygrus, genera of Pythonide ; with Diemenia and Acanthophis 
(Elapide) ; of lizards, Cyclodus, a genus of Scincide; and of 
Amphibia, a tree-frog of the genus Pelodryas. 
Insects—Peculiarities of the Moluccan Fauwna.—In insects the 
Moluccas are hardly, if at all, inferior to New Guinea itself. The 
islands abound in grand Papilios of the largest size and extreme 
beauty ; and it is a very remarkable fact, that when the closely- 
allied species of the Moluccas and New Guinea are compared, 
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