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III.] 



AND AUSTEALIAN KEGIONS. 



353 



whicli at 



times 



liad had a temjDorary connection 

 witli either continent, would contain a certain amount of 

 mixture in their living inhabitants. Such seems to Mr. 

 Wallace to have been the case with the islands of Celebes 

 and the Philippines. Other islands, again, though in such 

 close proximity as Bali and Lombok, might each exhibit an 

 almost unmixed sample of the productions of the continents 

 of which they had directly or indirectly once formed a part. 

 In the Malay archipelago we have indications of a vast 

 Australian continent which once reached westward to the 

 island of Celebes, and was characterised by a very peculiar 

 fauna and flora ; the western part of this continent was 

 afterwards broken up gradually and irregularly into islands. 

 At the same time Asia, which at first was separated from the 

 Australian continent by a wide ocean, appears to have been 

 extending its limits in a north-east direction in an unbroken 

 mass, so as to include Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, and pro- 

 bably reaching as far as the present 100 fathom line of 

 soundings, or as far as the boundary line a h, map, fio-. 132. 

 Afterwards the south-eastern portion of this land was sepa- 

 rated into islands as we now see it, some of them com in o- 



almost 



the great Southern or Australian land. 



some 



more 



ex- 



obvious bearing on the question of the origin of species by 

 variation than the grouping of species on continental tracts 

 I shall therefore consider that subject in a separate chapter •^- 

 but as I shall be unable to reason on the somewhat ^L 

 ceptional facts which these islands present in relation "to 

 theories of the origin of species, without constantly advertinc 

 to the relative powers of migration which different species 

 enjoy, I shall treat of this latter subject first in order and 

 then allude to the insular faunas and floras. ' 



* Chapter XLI. 



VOL. II. 



A A 



