76 AUSTRALASIA. 



domains, it forms in some respects a connecting link between both ; but most of its 

 species are altogetlier peculiar, so that this great island constitutes an independent 

 zoological world. Of the three hundred and fifty kinds of birds inhabiting the 

 Sunda group, ten only have reached Celebes, where there are no less than eighty 

 found nowhere else. Of its twenty-one mammals, including seven bats, eleven are 

 also peculiar to the island, while the local butterflies are distinguished from all 

 their congeners elsewhere by the outward form of their wings. 



The Moluccas, lying at the eastern extremity of Indonesia, resemble Timor 

 and Celebes in the poverty of their mammals, of which they have only ten, not 

 counting the ubiquitous bats, and of this number there is reason to believe that 

 about half, amongst others the cj'nopithek, confined to the island of Batjau, have 

 been introduced by man. The typical forms of this insular group approach those 

 of Australia, being of the marsupial order, and comprising amongst others the heli- 

 deus ariel, which outwardly resembles a flying squirrel. 



On the oiher hand, the Moluccas have a marvellous wealth of birds, their avi- 

 fauna being richer than that of the whole of Europe. Although the exploration 

 of this region is still far from completed, naturalists have already discovered two 

 hundred and sixty-five kinds of birds, of which one hundred and ninety-five are 

 terrestrial, and most of which, such as the parrakeets, pigeons, and kingfishers, 

 rival in beauty of form and gorgeous plumage those elsewhere found in the 

 tropical zone. The numerous insects also, and especially the butterflies, form the 

 admiration of explorers by their size and the metallic lustre of their wings. The 

 little island of Amboyna alone contains more remarkable varieties of lepidoptera 

 than many vast continental regions. Here, in fact, these animal forms may be 

 said to have reached the highest possible pitch of develoj)ment. Most of the 

 species are peculiar to the Moluccas, while the genera and types connect this 

 insular fauna with that of New Guinea. Although the Asiatic continent seems to 

 be continued from island to island far into the Pacific Ocean, both Celebes and the 

 Moluccas already belong zoologically to another region of the globe. 



Inhabitants of Indonesia. 



The Eastern Archipelago is shared as well by different races of mankind as by 

 different faunas, but the parting-lines do not coincide for the human and animal 

 forms. While the zoological domains are separated by the Lorabok Strait and the 

 broad Macassar Channel, the limits of the Malayan and Papuan races, with the 

 allied populations, have been shifted much farther towards the east : this line 

 traverses the islands of Jilolo and Burn, and then trends south-westwards in the 

 direction of Timor and Sumbawa. The inhabitants of the islands lying on either 

 side of these limits again present considerable differences amongst themselves, 

 either offering various shades of transition between the true Malays and intruders 

 of other races, or else belonging to a really original type, the possible survivors of 

 some primitive stock. At least fifty languages are current in the archipelago, and 

 each insular group requires to be studied apart with the territory occupied by it. 



