1869.] The Malay Arelii])elago. 175 



conclusions to wliicli its numerous and well-recorded facts unques- 

 tionably point. Tlie author's theory (one that has been floating in 

 the public mind for some time) is that the continent of Asia at one 

 period extended much farther eastward, and that of Australia farther 

 west, than at present, until they almost joined, and that the two 

 continents were probably separated by the Lombok Strait, which 

 divides an island of that name supposed to have formed part of 

 Australia from Bali, another existing island which is beHeved to 

 have constituted, along with Java and Sumatra, a portion of the old 

 Asiatic continent. This hypothesis is kept before the reader through- 

 out the work, and is supported by all the data which can be furnished 

 by physical geography, zoology, botany, and the heterogeneous 

 nature of the inhabitants of the Archipelago. A shallow sea sur- 

 rounds the JwcZo- Malayan region, as the author calls it, embracing the 

 Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and Bali : another shallow 

 sea encloses the Papuan region, whilst a deep one embraces the islands 

 of Celebes, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Timor, and the Moluccas — 

 all of which together constitute the ^itsifro-Malayan region. These 

 conditions are well shown in the map wliich accompanies the work. 

 The fauna of Australia seems to have crept as far as Lombok ; 

 that of Asia to Bali; and in the passage from one island to the 

 other, or rather by the contrast between the natural productions of 

 the two islands, the author seems to have been led to adopt the 

 theory which is so ably expounded in his work. When he first 

 visited Lombok, the most westerly of the Austro-Malayan Islands, 

 he says : — 



" Birds were plentiful and very interesting, and I now saw for the 

 first time many Australian forms that are quite absent from the islands 

 westward. Small white cockatoos were abundant, and their loud 

 screams, conspicuous white colour, and pretty yellow crests, rendered 

 them a very important feature in the landscape. This is the most 

 westerly jioint on the globe where any of the family are to be found. 

 Some small honeysuckers of the genus Ptilotis, and the strange mound- 

 maker [3Iegapodms goiddii), are also here fii'st met with on the travel- 

 ler's journey eastward." 



Subsequently he shows in detail how the Flora and Fauna of 

 the Timor group — namely, Lombok, Flores, and Timor — represent 

 the transition from the Asiatic to the Australian types. Thus 

 there are — 



Javan birds 



Australian birds 



these islands being all separated from each other by a deep sea ; 

 and as the same rule applies in a greater or lesser degree to 

 mammals, insects, and plants, the natural inference is, that the 



* Wallace, vol. i., p. 320. 



