454 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART II 



mammalia and birds. Java and Bali closely resemble 

 Borneo in general character, though somewhat less rich 

 and with several peculiar forms; while the Philippine 

 Islands, though very much poorer, and with a greater 

 amount of speciality, yet exhibit essentially the same 

 character. These islands, taken as a whole, may be 

 described as having a fauna almost identical with that of 

 Southern Asia ; for no family of mammalia is found in the 

 one which is absent from the other, and the same may be 

 said, with very few and unimportant exceptions, of the 

 birds ; while hundreds of genera and of species are common 

 to both. 



In the islands east and south of Celebes — the Moluccas, 

 New Guinea, and the Timor group from Lombok east- 

 ward — we find, on the other hand, the most wonderful 

 contrast in the forms of life. Of twenty-seven families of 

 terrestrial mammals found in the great Malay islands, all 

 have disappeared but four, and of these it is doubtful 

 whether two have not been introduced by man. We also 

 find here four families of Marsupials, all totally unknown 

 in the western islands. Even birds, though usually more 

 widely spread, show a corresponding difference, about 

 eleven Malayan families being quite unknown east of 

 Celebes, where six new families make their appearance 

 which are equally unknown to the westward.^ 



We have here a radical difference between two sets of 

 islands not very far removed from each other, the one set 

 belonging zoologically to Asia, the other to Australia. 

 The Asiatic or Malayan group is found to be bounded 

 strictly by the eastward limits of the great bank (for the 

 most part less than fifty fathoms below the surface) which 



1 Families of Malayan Birds not Families of Australasian Birds 

 found in islands East of not found in islands West of 

 Celebes. Celebes. 

 Troglodytidse. Paradiseidae. 

 Sittidse. Meliphagidae. 

 Paridse. Cacatuidse. 

 LiotrichidiE. Platycercidse. 

 Phyllornithidse. Triclioglossidse 

 Eurylaemidse. Nestoridse. 

 Picidse. 

 Indicatoridse. 

 Megalaemidse. 

 Trogonidse. 

 Phasianidse. 



