426 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part hi. 



north coast of Australia then sank, cutting off the supply from 

 that country ; and this left the Timorese group in the position it 

 now occupies. 



The reptiles and fishes of this group are too little known to 

 enable us to make any useful comparison. 



Insects. — The insects, though not numerous, present many fine 

 species, some quite unlike any others in the Archipelago. Such 

 are — Papilio liris, Pieris lecta, Cirrochroa lamarckii and C. lesche- 

 naultii among butterflies. The Coleoptera are comparatively little 

 known, but in the insects generally the Indo-Malay element pre- 

 dominates. This may have arisen from the peculiar vegetation 

 and arid climate not being suitable to the Papuan insects. Why 

 Australian forms did not establish themselves we cannot conjec- 

 ture ; but the field appears to have been open to immigrants from 

 Java, the climate and vegetation of which island at its eastern ex- 

 tremity approximates to that of the Timorese group. The insects 

 are, however, so peculiarly modified as to imply a very great anti- 

 quity, and this is also indicated by a group of Sylviine birds here 

 classed under Oreicola, but some of which probably form disfinct 

 genera. There may, perhaps, have been an earlier and a later 

 approximation to Java, which, with the other changes indicated, 

 would account for most of the facts presented by the fauna of 

 these islands. One deduction is, at all events, clear : the ex- 

 treme paucity of indigenous mammals along with the absence of 

 so many groups of birds, renders it certain that the Timorese 

 islands did not derive their animal life by means of an actual 

 union with any of the large islands either of the Australian or 

 the Oriental regions. 



Celebes Group. — We now come to the Island of Celebes, in 

 many respects the most remarkable and interesting in the whole 

 region, or perhaps on the globe, since no other island seems to 

 present so many curious problems for solution. We shall there- 

 fore give a somewhat full account of its peculiar fauna, and 

 endeavour to elucidate some of the causes to which its zoological 

 isolation may be attributed. 



Mammalia. — The following is the list of the mammalia of 



