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Ch. XXXVIIL] 



AND AUSTKALIAN EEC IONS. 



o 



51 



In tlie case of Borneo and Celebes there seems to have 

 been a partial fusion of the mammalia at some remote period, 

 as there is a species of baboon, a wild cat, and a squirrel in 

 Celebes, all belonging to Indian genera ; but that so few of the 

 mammals of Borneo should have reached Celebes, and that 

 there should be hardly a land-bird in common and very few 

 insects, is, perhaps, says Mr. Wallace, even more extraordi- 

 nary than the distinctness of the fauna of Bali and Lombok ; 



m 



model 



from their great size and altitude be very ancient. Between 



the latter also, although the sea is much wider than in the 

 Straits of Lombok, there is a great extent of opposing coasts 

 which would be very favourable to mutual immigration. 



It is a singular fact that there are distinct species of 

 wild pig in almost every large island, as in Sumatra, Borneo, 

 Java, New Guinea, and Timor, and one or more other 

 species are said to inhabit Gilolo. Some of these may 



at so remote a neriod as to 



man 



have varied greatly from the parent stock ; for if the pre- 

 vailing opinion be correct, that the Japanese pigs, of which 

 specimens were lately exhibited in our Zoological Gardens, 



Bus Indica^ we may 



mere varieties of the domesticated 



» 



sufficient 



a true species. We shall see in the next chapter that pigs 

 have been known, when swept by a flood into the sea, to swim 



may 



manner 



That so few quadrupeds, birds, and insects have obtained 

 a footing on the opposite sides of such channels as those oi 

 Lombok or the Macassar Straits, seems the more strange, 

 when we reflect on well-known instances of birds even of 

 weak flight having sometimes been carried by the wind 

 during heavy gales over wide spaces of sea. But the power 

 of preoccupancy is great in enabling the old indigenous in- 

 habitants to prevent stray individuals of foreign species 

 from effecting a permanent settlement. As to the Straits of 

 Lombok, they are very narrow, but there is so rapid a marine 



current always running through them, that it might easily 



&'. 



