1891.] W. Doherty — The Butterflies of Sumha and Samhawa, Sfc. 143 



origin to Sumba, and their language scarcely differs from Sumbanese. 

 In Sambawa, Lombok, and Bali, the flood of Mongolian immigrants has 

 swept away nearly all traces of the original inhabitants, and the people 

 are indistinguishable from the Malays or Siamese. The same race has 

 entered all the islands, I do not think there is a single island in the 

 Archipelago or the Pacific where the Mongolians have not profoundly 

 modified the original population, whether Polynesian or N'egrito. In 

 Sumba the mixture is of great interest, because it presents the same 

 features as in N"ew Zealand and among the eastern and higher tribes 

 of American Indians, namely, a race chiefly or largely Mongolian in 

 blood, but Polynesian in language and manners, and ruled by a princely 

 caste of genuine Polynesian blood. Till I visited Sumba I had no 

 idea of the possibility of this state of affairs so far west. But since 

 then I have been struck with the prevalence of Polynesian features, 

 and even to a cei^tain extent of Polynesian manners* among the higher 

 tribes between Assam and Burma, namely, some of the !N"aga tribes — 

 the Angamis, Lhotas and Kachhas — the Chins and the Lushais. This 

 country may well have been the starting point of this fine race, whence 

 they have extended their conquests eastwards to ISTew York and Yuca- 

 tan and westwards to Madagascar, and where, judging from what I 

 saw, they may yet survive after their exterraination, now so rapidly 

 going on, is complete everywhere else in the world. 



Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace has formed all the Lesser Sunda islands, 

 except Bali, separated from Java only by a narrow strait, into his 

 Timorian division of the Austro-Malayan region. So far as the birds are 

 concerned, he seems to have had good reason for this, for out of 160 

 land-birds known from the group, just half are found nowhere else, 

 a larger proportion than exists even in the peculiar Celebesian fauna. 

 On examination, however, it does not appear that the group is a zoolo- 

 gical province in the same sense as is the Celebes. In that island, a 

 great number of peculiar species, and a certain number of peculiar 

 genera, range over the whole island from Menado to Macassar. But 

 the Timor group contains hardly any peculiar genera,f and the peculiar 

 species are generally confined to one or two of its component parts. J 



* As regards language, the enplionio and structural rules are remarkably 

 alike, but the roots of Naga words are generally as wholly different from those of 

 the Pacific islanders, as theirs are again from those of the American Polynesians. 



t Two genera of butterflies, Ancistroides and Jatana, have been described 

 from Timor only. But I must confess that I cannot find in either any generic char- 

 acter separating it from its allies. 



t On examining the British Museum Catalogue of Birds as far as completed — 

 Passeres and Ficidce — I find their distribution as follows. No genera are mentioned 

 as peculiar to the Timor Group, or to any part of it. Only two species ai'6 men- 



