CHAP. XX.] 



CELEBES. 



427 



here and in the Moluccas ; a civet, Viverra tangahmja, common 

 in all the Malay Islands, and also perhaps introduced ; the 

 curious Malayan tarsier {Tarsius spectrum) said to be only 

 found in a small island off the coast ; — and besides these, three 

 remarkable animals, all of large size and all quite unlike any- 

 thing found in the Malay Islands or even in Asia. These are 

 a black and almost tailless baboon-like ape (Gynopithecus 

 nigrescens) ; an antelopean buffalo [Anoa depressicornis), and 

 the strange babirusa {BaUrusa alfurus). 



Neither of these three animals last mentioned have any close 

 allies elsewhere, and their presence in Celebes may be considered 

 the crucial fact which must give us the clue to the past history 

 of the island. Let us then see what they teach us. The ape 

 is apparently somewhat intermediate between the great baboons 

 of Africa and the short-tailed macaques of Asia, but its cranium 

 shows a nearer approach to the former group, in its flat project- 

 ing muzzle, large superciliary crests, and maxillary ridges. The 

 anoa, though anatomically allied to the buffaloes, externally 

 more resembles the bovine antelopes of Africa ; while the 

 babirusa is altogether unlike any other living member of the 

 swine family, the canines of the upper jaws growing directly 

 upwards like horns, forming a spiral curve over the eyes, instead 

 of downwards, as in all other mammalia. An approach to 

 this peculiarity is made by the African wart-hogs, in which 

 the upper tusk grows out laterally and then curves up; but 

 these animals are not otherwise closely allied to the babirusa. 



FrohaUe derivation of the Mammals of Celebes. — It is clear 

 that we have here a group of extremely peculiar, and, in all 

 probability, very ancient forms, which have been preserved to 

 " us by isolation in Celebes, just as the monotremes and mar- 

 supials have been preserved in Australia and so many of the 

 lemurs and Insectivora in Madagascar. And this compels us 

 to look upon the existing island as a fragment of some ancient 

 land, once perhaps forming part of the great northern continent, 

 but separated from it far earlier than Borneo, Sumatra, and 

 Java. The exceeding scantiness of the mammalian fauna, how- 

 ever, remains to be accounted for. We have seen that Formosa, 

 a much smaller island, contains more than twice as many 



