CHAP. XX.] 



CELEBES. 



425 



111 the islands east and south of Celebes — the Moluccas, New 

 Guinea, and the Timor group from Lombok eastward — 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 stretches out from the Siamese 

 and Malayan peninsulas as far as Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and 

 the Philippines. To the east another bank unites New Guinea 

 and the Papuan Islands as far as Aru, Mysol, and Waigiou, with 

 Australia ; while the Moluccas and Timor groups are surrounded 

 by much deeper water, which forms, in the Banda and Celebes 

 Seas and perhaps in other parts of this area, great basins of 

 enormous depths (2,000 to 3,000 fathoms or even more) enclosed 

 by tracts under a thousand fathoms, which separate the basins 



1 Families of Malayan Birds not Families of Moluccan Birds not 

 found in islands East of found in islands West of 

 Celebes. Celebes. 



Picidse. 



Indicatoridse. 



Megalgsmidse. 



Trogonid£e. 



Phasianidee. 



Troglodytidse. 



Sittidee. 



Paridte. 



Liotrichidse. 



PhyllornithidfB. 



Eurylgemid^. 



PlatycercidiE. 



Trichoglossid^. 



Nestoridee. 



Paradiseidfe. 

 MeliphagidfB. 

 Cacatuida?. 



