428 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [past hi. 



Australian form is represented in Celebes by two peculiar 

 species. 



Leaving out the Indo-Malay species, which may probably have 

 been introduced by man, and are at all events comparatively 

 recent immigrants, and the wild pig, a genus which ranges over 

 the whole archipelago and which has therefore little significance, 

 we find two genera which have come from the Australian side, 

 — discus and Mus ; and four from the Oriental side, — Cynopi- 

 thecus, Anoa, Bahirusa, and Sciurus. But Sciurus alone corre- 

 sponds to discus, as a genus still inhabiting the adjacent islands ; 

 the other three being not only peculiar to Celebes, but incapable 

 of being affiliated to any specially Oriental group. We seem, then, 

 to have indications of two distinct periods ; one very ancient, 

 when the ancestors of the three peculiar genera roamed over some 

 unknown continent of which Celebes formed, perhaps, an outlying 

 portion ; — another more recent, when from one side there entered 

 Sciurus, and from the other discus. But we must remember 

 that the Moluccas to the east, possess scarcely any indigenous 

 mammals except Cuscus ; whereas Borneo and Java on the west, 

 have nearly 50 distinct genera. It is evident then, that the 

 facilities for immigration must have been much less with the 

 Oriental than with the Australian region, and we may be pretty 

 certain that at this later period there was no land connection 

 with the Indo-Malay islands, or some other animals than squirrels 

 would certainly have entered. Let us now see what light is 

 thrown upon the subject by the birds. 



Birds. — The total number of birds known to inhabit Celebes 

 is 205, belonging to about 150 genera. We may leave out of 

 consideration the wading and aquatic birds, most of which are 

 wide-ranging species. There remain 123 genera and 152 species 

 of land-birds, of which 9 genera and 66 species are absolutely 

 confined to the island, while 20 more are found also in the Sula 

 or Sanguir Islands, so that we may take 86 to be the number of 

 peculiar Celebes species. Lord Walden, from whose excellent 

 paper on the birds of Celebes (Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. viii. p. 23) 

 most of these figures are obtained, estimates, that of the species 

 which are not peculiar to Celebes, 55 are of Oriental and 22 of 



