176 Frederick D. Welch—Remarks on some Cassowaries


the islands of Borneo and Celebes, Bali, and Lombok, which is known

to science as “ Wallace’s Line ”, beii^g so named after Dr. A. R. Wallace,

is presumably more interesting to mammal workers than to ornitho¬

logical ones as a boundary line in zoological distribution, because

mammals, except bats, cannot fly, and some few such as flying-

phalangers (a sort of marsupial), flying squirrels, the total number

of which is not numerous if we include only those capable of some

miles flight. It is clear, therefore, that mammals are more restricted

in range than birds are by the sea.


But the Cassowaries are, on account of their rudimentary wings

(which are of no use in carrying such bulky bodies in flight even for

a short distance), restricted in range by the sea boundaries, and are

confined to the south-east of Wallace’s Line in the islands there, Aru,

Ceram, New Guinea, New Britain and such-like, none of them extending

over the line into Java or Borneo.


This seems to me to point to the fact that the group must have

had these rudimentary wings at a period very, very far back indeed into

the long-distant past ages of the World’s History. Otherwise they

would almost certainly have crossed Wallace’s Line.



