176 



KNOWLEDGE, 



fArousT 1, 1898. 



probability that the wild pigs of Ceram and New Guinea 

 have been thus introduced ; and if this be the case, the 

 fauna of the Australasian region is made more absolutely 

 distinct from that of the Oriental province. The deer of 

 the Moluccas and Timor present a case of greater diiSculty ; 

 but, as the Moluccas cannot well be separated from the 

 Australasian region, they would seem, in these islands at 

 least, to have been introduced, and, if so, the same will 

 hold good with certain smaller mammals of an Oriental 

 type, such as civets. 



We are now in a position to consider how the animals 

 of Celebes compare with those of the neighbouring islands. 

 Now, the only mammals of a purely Australian type found 

 in that island are two species of cuscuses — sleepy creatures, 

 with beautifully soft fur, often very brilliantly coloured, 

 and showing great individual or sexual variation in the 

 markings. They are near relatives of the so-called 

 opossums (phalangers) of Australia, and are purely arboreal 

 creatures, passing the day comfortably coiled up in slumber, 

 and feeding at night. If these creatures were of a type 

 which might be regarded as near to that from which the 

 other marsupials of Australia might have sprung, they 

 might be considered as survivors from the migration of 

 marsupials which probably took place at a remote epoch 

 from Asia to Australia. But they are not so, and it is 

 therefore clear that this hypothesis will not account for 

 their presence in the island. As they are so completely 

 arboreal in their habits, they are, however, just the kind 

 of creatures which we might naturally expect to be wafted 

 from one island to another on floating timber ; and it is 

 far from improbable that it is to this mode of transport 

 they owe their presence in Celebes. 



AH the other mammals are of an Oriental type, although 

 several of them are quite unlike their relatives on the 

 mainland and other islands. Among them one of the 

 most remarkable is the babirussa, a curious little pig, in 

 which the tusks of both jaws in the males attain a most 

 extraordinary development, the lower ones curving straight 

 upwards, while the upper ones grow right through the 

 skull to curve backwards in a bold sweep towards the eyes. 

 Although nothing definitely is known as to the origin of 

 this strange animal, yet it is evidently a highly specialized 

 offshoot from the ancestral pigs of Asia. Equally peculiar 

 is the tiny little black buffalo, or anoa, which is not much 

 larger than a good-sized ram, and has upright horns quite 

 imlike those of the ordinary Asiatic buffalo. In the island of 

 Mindoro, near the centre of the Philippine group, there 

 is, however, a considerably larger buffalo, known as the 

 tamarau, which serves to connect the anoa with the ordinary 

 Asiatic species. More important still is the occurrence in 

 the Tertiary deposits of Northern India of several species of 

 buffaloes intimately related to the anoa. Clearly, then, 

 this animal has originated from an Oriental stock, and 

 the occurrence of an allied species in the PhihppLnes tends 

 to show that these islands were connected at no very remote 

 epoch with Celebes. Now the Phihppines themselves, as 

 shown by their deer, have intimate relationships with 

 Borneo, and thus with the mainland. 



The deer reported to occur in the island is a variety of 

 the rusa of Java, and apparently identical with the form 

 found in the Molu3cas. It is generally considered to have 

 been introduced, but as Celebes shows so many signs of 

 affinity with the more western Malayan islands in its 

 animals, this does not appear by any means certain. 

 Anyway, the Moluccan race may well have been exported 

 from Celebes by the Malays. 



The next most noteworthy animals in the mammalian 

 fauna of the island are two species of monkeys, both 

 remarkable for their black colour. The first of these is 



the short-tailed black baboon, a species representing a 

 genus by itself, and with relationships to the true baboons 

 of Africa and Arabia. Such relationship, from a geographi- 

 cal point of view, might seem difBcult to account for, and 

 to those who neglect the animals of a past epDch it would 

 appear well-nigh inexplicable. But it happens that extinct 

 baboons occur in India ; and as they doubtless also existed 

 in other parts of the Oriental region, there is no difficulty 

 in accounting for the origin of the Celebesian representative 

 of the group. The other species — the Moor macaque— 

 ! belongs to a widely spread Oriental genus. 



But the most curious of all the mammals of the island 

 ! is a species of tarsier — a small creature with enormous 

 goggle eyes, slender lanky limbs, and toes terminating in 

 suckers — distantly related to the lemurs. Now, these 

 tarsiers are strictly limited to the islands of Sumatra, 

 Borneo, Java, Celebes, and Mindanao, together with some 

 of the neighbouring islets ; and are totally unknown to 

 the eastward of the Molucca Sea. Although, being 

 arboreal animals, it may be argued that, like the cuscuses 

 of Celebes, they have been carried about by floating timber, 

 it seems in the highest degree unlikely they should have 

 reached all the islands with an Oriental type of fauna, and 

 avoided all those where the true Australian type comes in. 

 Moreover, they are very delicate animals, exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to keep alive in captivity, and there is accordingly a 

 strong probability that they are native to the islands 

 where they occur. Like so many of its other animals, the 

 tarsier of Celebes is black — as, indeed, are the species from 

 the other islands. 



So far, then, as their mammals are concerned, it seems 

 probable that at no very distant epoch Celebes, Borneo, 

 and the Philippines formed one land area ; while Borneo 

 itself was connected with the mainland, probably by way 

 of Sumatra, the orang and some other species being com- 

 mon to these two islands and unknown elsewhere. It is 

 further probable that Celebes, and most likely a portion of 

 the Philippines, became isolated before Borneo ceased to 

 be connected with Sumatra — or at all events with the main- 

 land. But the south-western portion of the Philippine 

 group, namely, the island of Palawan, shows evidence of a 

 closer connection with Borneo than with the rest of the 

 archipelago to which it belongs. On the other hand, the 

 mountains of Luzon, in the Northern Philippines, contain 

 a remarkable group of rats, some of which show affinity 

 to those inhabiting Australia ; and it therefore seems 

 highly likely that the Philippines mark a portion of the 

 line by which Asia was probably in communication 

 at a still earlier epoch with New Guinea and Australia. 

 Still, there are some difficulties in this view of the 

 case, because the more primitive types of marsupials 

 now found in Australia are at present unknown in New 

 Guinea. Possibly, however, some still remain to be 

 discovered in the unexplored mountains of that country ; 

 while, as the exploration of the Luzon Mountains by Mr. 

 John Whitehead has yielded such wonderful zoological 

 results, there is a hope that when the mountains of the 

 other islands have been as carefully worked we may find a 

 few marsupials still surviving. Should such a fortunate 

 " find " turn up, we should have almost conclusive evidence 

 that the ancestors of the present fauna of Australia travelled 

 from Asia by way of the eastern archipelago. 



There are many other points connected with the present 

 distribution of animal life in this wonderful region, and 

 their bearing on the former relations of the various islands 

 to one another, to which the limits of this article forbid 



* The mammals from these mountains have been worked out by 

 Mr. O. Thomas, of the British Museum. 



