446 NATURAL HISTORY [chap, xviii. 



much into details that I fear will have been uninteresting to 

 the general reader, hut unless I had done so my exposition 

 would have lost much of its force and value. It is by 

 these details alone, that 1 have been able to prove the 

 unusual features that Celebes presents to us. Situated in 

 the very midst of an Archipelago, and closely hemmed in 

 on every side by islands teeming with varied forms of life, 

 its productions have yet a surprising amount of indi- 

 viduality. While it is poor in the actual number of its 

 species, it is yet wonderfully rich in peculiar forms ; many 

 of which are singular or beautiful, and are in some cases 

 absolutely unique upon the globe. We behold here the 

 curious phenomenon, of groups of insects changing their 

 outline in a similar manner when compared with those of 

 surrounding islands, suggesting some common cause which 

 never seems to have acted elsewhere in exactly the same 

 way. Celebes, therefore, presents us with a most striking 

 example of the interest that attaches to the study of the 

 geographical distribution of animals. We can see that 

 their present distribution upon the globe is the result of 

 all the more recent changes the earth's surface has under- 

 gone ; and by a careful study of the phenomena we are 

 sometimes able to deduce approximately what those past 

 changes must have been, in order to produce the distri- 

 bution we find to exist. In the comparatively simple case 

 of the Timor group, we were able to deduce these changes 



