OF THE MALAYAN REGION. 31 
Antelope of obseure affinities, but quite unlike anything else in the whole archipelago or 
in India; and Babirusa, an altogether abnormal wild Pig. With a rather limited bird 
population, Celebes has an immense preponderance of species confined to it, and has also 
five remarkable genera (Meropogon, Streptocitta, Enodes, Scissirostrum, and Megacepha- 
lon) entirely restricted to its narrow limits, as well as two others (Prioniturus and Basi- 
lornis) which only range to a single island beyond it. 
Mr. Smith's elaborate tables of the distribution of Malayan Hymenoptera (see * Proc. 
Linn. Soc. Zool. vol. vii.) show that, out of the large number of 301 species colleeted in 
Celebes, 190 (or nearly two-thirds) were absolutely restrieted to it, although Borneo, on 
one side, and the various islands of the Moluccas on the other, were equally well ex- 
plored by me; and no less than twelve of the genera are not found in any other island of 
the archipelago. I have just shown in the present paper that, in the Papilionidæ, it has 
far more species of its own than any other island, and a greater proportion of peculiar 
species than many of the large groups of islands in the archipelago—and that it gives to 
a large number of the species and varieties which inhabit it, 1st, an increase of size, 
and, 2nd, a peculiar modification in the form of the wings, which stamp upon the most 
dissimilar insects a mark distinctive of their common birth-place. 
What, I would ask, are we to do with phenomena such as these? Are we to rest 
content with that very simple, but at the same time very unsatisfying explanation, that 
all these insects and other animals were created exactly as they are, and originally placed 
exactly where they are, by the inscrutable will of their Creator, and that we have nothing 
to do but to register the facts and wonder? Was this single island selected for a fan- 
tastic display of creative power, merely to excite a child-like and unreasoning admira- 
tion? Is all this appearance of gradual modification by the action of natural causes—a 
modification the successive steps of which we can almost trace—all delusive? Is this 
harmony between the most diverse groups, all presenting analogous phenomena, and 
indicating a dependence upon physical changes of which we have independent evi- 
dence, all false testimony? If I could think so, the study of nature would have lost for 
me its greatest charm. I should feel as would the geologist, if you could convince him 
that his interpretation of the earth’s past history was all a delusion—that strata were 
never formed in the primeval ocean, and that the fossils he so carefully collects and 
studies are no true record of a former living world, but were all created just as they 
now are, and in the rocks where he now finds them. 
I must here express my own belief that none of these phenomena, however apparently 
isolated or insignificant, can ever stand alone—that not the wing of a butterfly can 
change in form, or vary in colour, except in harmony with, and as a part of, the grand 
march of nature. I believe, therefore, that all the curious phenomena I have just re- 
capitulated are immediately dependent on the last series of changes, organic and inor- 
ganic, in these regions; and as the phenomena presented by the island of Celebes differ 
from those of all the surrounding islands, it can, I conceive, only be because the past 
history of Celebes has been to some extent unique and different from theirs. We must 
have much more evidence to determine exactly in what that difference has consisted. 
At present, I only see my way clear to one deduction, viz., that Celebes represents one 
