444 NATURAL HISTORY [chap, xviii. 



certainly adds considerably to the strange character of 

 this remarkable island. 



The anomalies and eccentricities in the natural history 

 of Celebes which I have endeavoured to sketch in this 

 chapter, all point to an origin in a remote antiquity. The 

 history of extinct animals teaches us, that their distribu- 

 tion in time and in space are strikingly similar. The rule 

 is, that just as the productions of adjacent areas usually 

 resemble each other closely, so do the productions of 

 successive periods in the same area ; and as the produc- 

 tions of remote areas generally differ widely, so do the 

 productions of the same area at remote epochs. We are 

 therefore led irresistibly to the conclusion, that change of 

 species, still more of generic and of family form, is a 

 matter of time. But time may have led to a change of 

 species in one country, while in another the forms have 

 been more permanent, or the change may have gone on at 

 an equal rate but in a different manner in both. In 

 either case the amount of individuality in the productions 

 of a district, will be to some extent a measure of the time 

 that district has been isolated from those that surround it. 

 Judged by this standard, Celebes must be one of the oldest 

 parts of the Archipelago. It probably dates from a period 

 not only anterior to that when Borneo, Java, and Sumatra 

 were separated from the continent, but from that still 

 more remote epoch when the land that now constitutes 



