SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 2[ 



a moment, and suppose an observer on Mars were to examine the 

 earth with successive increasingly powerful telescopes. The first 

 artificial production that he would probably be able to see would be 

 some of the great grain-fields of our Western States. These he would 

 find of irregular shape, but bounded more or less by straight lines. 

 They would appear of a greenish color, not very different from 

 that of our oceans ; and he would find them subject to great 

 changes at certain seasons, sometimes perhaps entirely disappear- 

 ing from sight, when of the same tint as the surrounding country. 

 In fact, if an observer were placed on Mars, and furnished with one 

 of our more powerful telescopes, he would see just about as much 

 of our grain-fields as we do of their stripes, and the only noticeable 

 difference between the two would lie in their shape. Indeed, as- 

 suming an artificial origin, it would be easy to frame hypotheses 

 accounting for their form, dependent upon the peculiar conforma- 

 tion of the land surface of Mars, or for their radiating in several 

 instances from particular points as centres. 



But to return to our hypothesis, that the stripes are of vegetable 

 origin. If it is correct, there is one test to which it must submit. 

 If a change is noted in a given stripe, this change should be in 

 general more or less progressive from the equator towards the 

 poles, or vice versa. I say in general, because it is not probable 

 that the same kind of vegetation would exist all the way from the 

 equator to 50° north or south latitude, nor would it be the same in 

 all stripes having the same latitude. Moreover, in the stripes run- 

 ning east and west, or in those situated near the equator, succes- 

 sive changes would not usually be noticeable. Stripes containing 

 the same kind of vegetation should be similarly affected. Now, in 

 the stripe known as Hades, previously referred to, this very phe- 

 nomenon was observed. Hades runs in a direction nearly north 

 and south, and e.xtends from latitude 20" to 45* north. The ob- 

 servation in question was made about two and a half of our months 

 after the passage of the northern solstice on Mars. It was there- 

 fore in the latter part of their summer when it was found that the 

 southern portion of what had but a few weeks before been a well- 

 defined stripe had completely disappeared. 



As an illustration of the formation of a stripe running from the 

 equator towards the pole, let us take the latest observations of M. 

 Perrotin {Comptes Rendtis,Q.v\\. 161). According to these observa- 

 tions in the regions as far north as between latitudes 50° and 60°, 

 the stripes did not appear this year until June 4. or four months 

 after the summer solstice. Unfortunately, Mars is now getting so 

 near the sun that it will be probably impracticable to determine the 

 date of their disappearance, should they be found later to have van- 

 ished. Wm. H. Pickering. 



Observatory, Cambridge, Mass.. Aug. g. 



The Philippine Islands. 



Mr. Wallace, in his great work, ' The Geographical Distribu- 

 tion of Animals,' divides the Oriental or Indian region of Mr. 

 Sclater into four sub-regions, of which Java, Sumatra, Malacca, 

 Borneo, and the Philippine Islands form one, which he calls the 

 Indo-Malayan. In his discussion of the Indo-Malayan sub-region, 

 Mr. Wallace recognizes several subdivisions of it, and treats of 

 the Philippine group as one of the most important of these. Though 

 acknowledging the existence of divisions of his sub-regions, he 

 failed to give them technical names, as at that time uncalled for. 

 The purpose of this paper is to show that the Philippines them- 

 selves are separated into several distinct zoological divisions ; and 

 it therefore seems necessary, for their study, to give technical 

 names to the primary and secondary divisions of the already rec- 

 ognized sub-regions. The terms 'province' and ' sub-province ' 

 seem least objectionable, and will be used here ; the Philippine 

 Islands thus forming one of the provinces of the Indo-Malayan 

 sub-region, and the divisions of the group itself sub-provinces. 



The zoological province of the Philippines is co-e,xtensive with 

 the political division of the same name, with the exception, per- 

 haps, of the islands of Sulu and Tawi Tawi, which lie between the 

 Philippines and Borneo, but are claimed by the Spanish. 



The sub-provinces proposed are, first, the northern Philippines, 

 consisting of Luzon, Marinduque, and a number of other small 

 islands about Luzon ; second, Mindoro ; third, the central Philip- 



pines, made up of the islands of Panay, Guimaras, Negros, Cebu, 

 Bojol, and Masbate ; fourth, the eastern Philippines, comprising 

 the islands of Samar and Leite ; fifth, the southern Philippines, 

 embracing the great island of Mindanao, with Basilan ; and, sixth, 

 the western Philippines, consisting of the islands of Paragua or 

 Palawan, and Balabac. 



The geographical positions of these sub-provinces are fortunately 

 such that these simple names show their relation to each other 

 very closely, as may be seen by consulting a map of the archi- 

 pelago. 



Of these sub-provinces, the western Philippines, made up of 

 Paragua and Balabac, and perhaps the Calamianes, is of most im- 

 portance, its animal life being much more closely allied to that of 

 Borneo than that of any other sub-province of the group. This 

 is especially noticeable in its mammals, of which it possesses, in 

 common with Borneo, the genera Tragulus, Ttipaia, and Mam's, 

 which are apparently absent from the rest of the archipelago. Of 

 Bornean genera of birds not found elsewhere in the group, /i^r^, 

 Criniger, PolypJietron, Tiga, and Batrachostomus are examples 

 The sub-province has evidently received a large part of its fauna from 

 North Borneo, through Balabac, and at a comparatively recent date, 

 and since its separation on the north from the rest of the Philip- 

 pines, so that these genera have not flown over into Mindoro and 

 Luzon. In addition to these apparently late arrivals from Borneo, 

 the sub-province possesses a large number of peculiarly Philippine 

 birds and mammals, which show that it is an integral part of the 

 province. 



The rest of the Philippines would seem to have received its Ma- 

 layan fauna at another time and by the other way of Sulu and 

 Mindanao. They possess the mammalian genera Galeopithecus, 

 Tarsius, and Cervus, which are apparently wanting to the west- 

 ern sub-province, and the genera Macaciis, Stis, Viverra, Para- 

 doxiirtis, and Sciurtis in common with it. Of birds, the genera Zo- 

 riculus, Cyclopsitta, Buceros, and Petielopides are examples which 

 are more or less generally distributed over the archipelago outside 

 of the western sub-province. 



The grounds for dividing the Philippines east of Paragua into 

 sub-provinces are to quite an extent based upon species, and 

 especially upon the existence in each of representative forms of the 

 genera Loriculus, Buceros, Penelopides, Brachiurus, Chrysoco- 

 laptes, DiccEum, Cmnyris, etc. The hornbills form, perhaps, the 

 most striking example of this distribution of representative species. 

 Of the eleven species of hornbills collected in the islands, the west- 

 ern sub-province has one, the southern three, the central two, the 

 eastern two, Mindoro one, and the northern two ; and we have 

 found no case of a single species occupying more than one sub- 

 province, or of more than one species of a genus in a single sub- 

 province. The genera Chrysocolaptes of woodpeckers is also 

 noticeable, each sub-province possessing its own species, with the 

 exception of Mindoro, which apparently lacks the genus altogether. 

 The genus Loriculus of the parrots is of the same character. 



Of other animals than birds, the genus Scitiriis of mammals, and 

 Draco, the flying lizards, seem to have representative species in 

 each sub-province, and the land mollusca are probably distributed 

 according to the same plan. 



The above examples are a few that come to mind before a care- 

 ful study of our collections has been made, and they do not by any 

 means represent all the reasons for the conclusions arrived at. 

 These are the result, rather, of the observation of five careful men 

 who have been collecting and studying in the Philippines during the 

 last year. During this time we have visited and collected in fifteen 

 of the islands of the group, and these the largest and most impor- 

 tant. I am satisfied that the study of our collections, with the aid 

 of the libraries and collections at home, will only strengthen the 

 conclusions of this paper. It may prove necessary to make the so- 

 called western sub-province of more importance in the arrange- 

 ment, but the non-existence in nature of exactly equivalent divis- 

 ions of any kind is well recognized. It is hoped that our work may 

 aid in untangling some of those puzzles in which students of Phil- 

 ippine zoology have found themselves involved, and that it will 

 also add considerably to the sum of knowledge concerning this as 

 yet imperfectly known corner of the earth. J. B. Steere. 



Manila, July 2. 



