22 TEE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap. i. 



The strait is here fifteen miles wide, so that we may pass 

 in two hours from one great division of the earth to 

 another, differing as essentially in their animal life as 

 Europe does from America. If we travel from Java or 

 Borneo to Celehes or the Moluccas, the difference is still 

 more striking. In the first, the forests abound in monkeys 

 of many kinds, wild cats, deer, civets, and otters, and 

 numerous varieties of squirrels are constantly met with. 

 In the latter none of these occur; but the prehensile- 

 tailed discus is almost the only terrestrial mammal seen, 

 except wild pigs, which are found in all the islands, and 

 deer (which have probably been recently introduced) in 

 Celebes and the Moluccas. The birds which are most 

 abundant in the Western Islands are woodpeckers, barbets, 

 trogons, fruit-thrushes, and leaf-thrushes : they are seen 

 daily, and form the great ornithological features of the 

 country. In the Eastern Islands these are absolutely 

 unknown, honeysuckers and small lories being the most 

 common birds ; so that the naturalist feels himself in a 

 new world, and can hardly realize that he has passed from 

 the one region to the other in a few days, without ever 

 being out of sight of land. 



The inference that we must draw from these facts is 

 undoubtedly, that the whole of the islands eastwards 

 beyond Java and Borneo do essentially form a part of 

 a former Australian or Pacific continent, although some 



