CELEBES. 33 



however, Papuasian affinity is shown in the presence of two peculiar species of 

 the engystomatid genus Sphenophryne. The fact that scincids predominate 

 in the fauna of the island, the number of species being larger than that of any 

 other family, points at once to a more strongly eastern relationship of the fauna 

 than one would at first sight realize; for many of the species are pecuUar to the 

 island, and as such do not figure in the counts of species known from either 

 east or west. Thus, considering the enormous predominance of the members 

 of this family in New Guinea, for instance, as against their extreme paucity in 

 Java or Sumatra, the presence of fourteen species of what may be broadly 

 termed Lygosomas serves at once to emphasize this eastern affinity. Some 

 species, as Natrix vittata and N. chrysargoides, as also Calamaria calamaria, are 

 found on Java and Celebes, but upon none of the islands of the Lesser Sunda 

 chain. To this category also belong C. virgulata and Typhlops ater; whereas 

 among amphibians, Rana microdisca occurs on Celebes, on Java, and in the 

 Mentawei group. Examples of such distribution as this among the various 

 groups of animals have been made the basis for what the Sarasins call their 

 Java Bridge; they maintain that this connection was direct, and had nothing 

 to do with the Lesser Sunda chain. In other groups of animals, however, dis- 

 tributions point directly to a bridge with this chain, and Flores has been accepted 

 as the island to which the connection most probably led, so that this has come 

 to be known as the Flores Bridge. Whether, however, in the light of the very 

 little which is known of the herpetology of most of the Lesser Sunda Islands, 

 the distribution of reptiles and amphibians bears out the distinctness or even 

 the existence of both of these bridges, it is difficult to say. Special relation to 

 the Philippines is shown, as Boulenger has pointed out, by a considerable number 

 of other species. 



This brings us directly to another point which is of considerable interest, 

 viz. — the localization within Celebes of the distributions of various species. 

 We should expect the forms having closest relationship with the Philippines, 

 for instance, to occur especially on the Minahassa or northern peninsula of the 

 Island. This is not very strongly brought out, however, by the data at hand; 

 to be sure Dendrelaphis terrificus does occur in this locality only; on the other 

 hand R. microdisca occurs also only on the Minahassa, though it is a species 

 which we have spoken of as occurring elsewhere only in Java and the Mentawei 

 Islands. Any other of the local distributions, so far as we know them, are 

 equally anomalous ; but we may readily imagine that a further special collection 

 in herpetology may change this. 



