162 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



the character of their animals and plants than do Britain and Japan. 

 On the Australian side of the straits we find Lombok, the outpost, 

 so to speak, of the strange Australian land that lies beyond. On the 

 Indian side lies Bali, essentially identical with the other islands of 

 the Archipelago in the life which has already been described. Does 

 the theory of special creation give any rational explanation amongst 

 its tenets for this extraordinary dissimilarity between two apparently 

 adjacent islands ? Or, if we look in vain for such explanation from the 

 side of special creation, does the theory of evolution, which postulates 

 the long separation of Bali from Lombok as the primary cause of 

 the divergence of their respective fauna, offer a satisfactory solution 

 of the problem? There can be no hesitation in our choice of 

 explanations ; since, whilst the former hypothesis presents only a 

 speculative faith as the reason of its being, the latter is founded upon 

 geological facts, and upon evidence derived from the distribution 

 of life at large. 



Again, in the Oriental region, and within the limits of the Eastern 

 Archipelago itself, we may meet with abundant instances of the same 

 great truth, that the long isolation and separation of any land, how- 

 ever limited or however extended its area, must entail a corresponding 

 divergence and specialisation of its included animals and plants. 

 The history of islands becomes, in this view of matters, especially 

 instructive to the naturalist. Java, Borneo, and Sumatra are thus 

 regarded in a geographical sense as being nearly connected. Java 

 and Sumatra are geographically near, whilst Borneo is more remote 

 from the two former islands. But, curiously enough, whilst Borneo 

 is thus removed from the vicinity of Sumatra, its included life 

 resembles that of Sumatra, whilst the animals and plants of these 

 two islands taken together, differ materially from those of Java. Thus, 

 whilst at least 13 genera of quadrupeds are known to inhabit two or 

 often three of the other Oriental areas Borneo, Sumatra, and the 

 Malay Peninsula these genera are absent from Java, and they 

 include, as Mr. Wallace remarks, such typical forms as the elephant, 

 tapir, and Malayan bear. There are 25 genera of birds found as a 

 rule in Sumatra, Borneo, and the Malayan peninsula, which are 

 yet absent from Java ; these birds including the jays, gapers, horn- 

 bills, cuckoos, pheasants, partridges, and other equally familiar 

 forms A second fact of importance in considering the relations of 

 Java to its neighbour islands consists in certain marked similarities 

 which its animals are known to present to the Asiatic Continent. 

 The mammals and birds of Java, in a word, " when not Malayan, 

 are almost all Indian or Siamese." How, then, are these two series 

 of facts to be accounted for ? How are we to explain, firstly, the 

 dissimilarity of Java from Sumatra and Borneo, and its likeness to 

 Indian and Siamese in respect of its included life ? Again we appeal 



