2S4 



NATURAL BISTORT, [chap, xrni 



itidicated by tlie Mascarene islands and the Mal<live coral 

 group, the name of Leniuria. Whether or no we believe in 

 its existence in the exact form here indicated, llie student 

 of geo5:raplucal distribution mnst see in tlie extraordinary 

 and isolated productions of Celebes, proofs of tlie former 

 existence of some continent from whence the ancestors of 

 these creatures, and of many other intermediate forma, 

 could have been derived. 



In this short sketch of the most striking peculiarities of 

 the Natural History of Celebes, 1 have been obliged to enter 

 much into details that I fear will have been uninteresting to 

 the general reader, but unless I had done so niy exposition 

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

 these details alone, that I 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, 

 \U 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 pbenomenon, 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 chiuiges the earth's surface has under- 

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

 sometimes able to deduce approximately wdmt those past 

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

 bution we find to exist. In tlie comparatively simple case 

 of the Timor grt>'ip, we were able to deduce these changes 

 with some approach ti> certainty. In the much more 

 complicated case of Celebes we can only indicate their 

 general nature, since we now see tlje result, not of any 

 single or recent change only, but of ft whole series of 

 the later revolutions which have resulted in the present 

 distribution of land in the Eastern Hemisphere. 



