542 ISLAND LIFE part ii 



combines some of the characteristics of continental and 

 oceanic islands. 



The peculiarities of the Celebesian fauna have already 

 been dwelt upon in several previous works, but they are 

 so remarkable and so unique that they cannot be omitted 

 in a treatise on " Insular Faunas " ; and here, as in the case 

 of Borneo and Java, fuller consideration and the appli- 

 cation of the general principles laid down in our First 

 Part, lead to a solution of the problem at once more simple 

 and more satisfactory than any which have been previously 

 proposed. I now look upon Celebes as an outlying 

 portion of the great Asiatic continent of Miocene times, 

 which either by submergence or some other cause had lost 

 the greater portion of its animal inhabitants, and since 

 then has remained more or less completely isolated from 

 every other land. It has thus preserved a fragment of a 

 very ancient fauna along with a number of later types 

 which have reached it from surrounding islands by the 

 ordinary means of dispersal. This sufficiently explains all 

 the peculiar affinities of its animals, though the peculiar and 

 distinctive characters of some of them remain as mysterious 

 as ever. 



New Zealand is shown to be so completely continental in 

 its geological structure, and its numerous wingless birds so 

 clearly imply a former connection with some other land 

 (as do its numerous lizards and its remarkable reptile, the 

 Hatteria), that the total absence of indigenous land- 

 mammalia was hardly to be expected. Some attention is 

 therefore given to the curious animal which has been seen 

 but never captured, and this is shown to be probably 

 identical with an animal referred to by Captain Cook. 

 The more accurate knowledge which has recently been 

 obtained of the sea bottom around New Zealand enables 

 us to determine that the former connection of that island 

 with Australia was towards the north, and this is found 

 to agree well with many of the peculiarities of its 

 fauna. 



The flora of New Zealand and that of Australia are 

 now both so well known, and they present so many 

 peculiarities, and relations of so anomalous a character, 



