^2 Introduction: Wallace's line. 



themselves in competition with the ancient inhabitants. To the naturalist, there- 

 fore, Celebes is an island of extreme interest. It cannot be said to belong 

 either to the eastern or the western divisions of the archipelago, but to stand 

 almost exactly midway between them; the relic of a more ancient land, and 

 dating from a period perhaps anterior to the separate existence of any of the 



islands." 



If we now glance over the scientific literature on "Wallace's line", as 

 Huxley baptised it P. Z. S. 1868, 313), it should be understood that we do 

 not pretend to give an exhaustive extract, but only quote such writings as have 

 been within easy reach or which have appeared sufficiently characteristic. There 

 are also heaps of other books and papers in which Wallace's line is mentioned. 



E. Blyth, in 1871 (Nature III, 428), recognizes the line. He has a Cele- 

 besian Sub-region of the Melanesian Region and it comprises: Celebes, Lombok, 

 Sumbawa, Flores, Wetter, Timor and Sandalwood Island. 



J. Pijnappel, in 1872 ("Enkele aanmerkingen op Wallace's Insulinde": 

 Bijdr. taal, 1. en vk. Ned. Ind. 3. ser. VII, 159), made some serious objections 

 and is of opinion, that as Geography, Anthropology, Ethnography and Botany 

 are opposed to the line. Zoology alone cannot uphold it; the less so, as it 

 sometimes requires the most hazardous hypotheses as to geological convulsions, 

 upheavals and submergences in order to explain the occurrence of a single 

 mammal. 



A. V. Pelzeln in a paper entitled "Africa-Indien", published 1875 (see: 

 Verh. z.-b. Ges. Wien p. 33), adopted the line; he considered Celebes as 

 belonging to the Australian Region and enunciated as peculiar bird-genera (p. 48) : 

 Monachakyon, Cittura, Ceycopsis, Artamides, Gazzola, Streptocitta , Scissirostnim, 

 Enodes, Basileornis, Prioniturus and Meqacephalon . He takes as identical (p. 47) 

 Scops niatiadenxis from Celebes and Madagascar,, and Ortygometni flavirostria from 

 Celebes and Africa, and mentions eighteen species which are common to the 

 Ethiopian and the Indo-Malayan Region. In 1876 he confirmed his general 

 conclusion in a paper on the Malayan mammalia see: Festschr. z.-b. Ges. p. 53). 



P. J. Veth, in 1875, gave a lecture on the line before the International 

 Geograjjhical Congress in Paris ("Observations sur les lignes de Wallace": C. 

 R. Congr. Int. des sc. geogr. a Paris, 1878, 305), and treated the matter with the 

 acumen usual to him. He said that it rests on an inadequate basis hydrographically, 

 that the flora was not taken into consideration, that Wallace only referred to 

 mammals, birds, some insects and land-shells instead of to the whole fauna; that it is, 

 therefore, zoologically insufficiently proved, and that it is not evinced by the facts 

 of anthropology (see, also, 1. c, p. 276 and Veth's translation of Wallace's paper: 

 "Over de physische Geogr. van den Ind. Arch", with notes, Zalt-Bommel. 1865. 



J. A. Allen, 1878 ("The Geogi'aphical Distribution of the Mammalia con- 

 sidered in relation to the principal ontological regions of the earth and the laws 

 that govern the distribution of animal life": Bull, of the U. S. Geol. and Geogr. 



