82 
Introduction; Wallace’s line. 
themselves in competition with the ancient inhabitants. To the naturalist, there- 
fore, Celebes is an island of extreme interest. It cannot be said to belong 
either to the eastern or the western divisions of the archipelago, but to stand 
almost exactly midway between them; the relic of a more ancient land, and 
dating from a period perhaps anterior to the separate existence of any of the 
islands.” 
If we now glance over the scientific literature on “Wallace’s line”, as 
Huxley baptised it (P. Z. S. 1868, 313), it should be understood that we do 
not pretend to give an exhaustive extract, but only quote such writings as have 
been within easy reach or which have appeared sufficiently characteristic. There 
are also heaps of other books and papers in which Wallace’s line is mentioned. 
E. Blyth, in 1871 (Nature III, 428), recognizes the line. He has a Cele- 
besian Sub-region of the Melanesian Region and it comprises: Celebes, Lombok, 
Sumbawa, Plores, Wetter, Timor and Sandalwood Island. 
J. Pijnappel, in 1872 (“Enkele aanmerkingen op Wallace’s Insulinde”; 
Bijdr. taal, 1. en vk. Ned. Ind. 3. ser. VII, 159), made some serious objections 
and is of opinion, that as Geography, Anthropology, Ethnography and Botany 
are opposed to the line. Zoology alone cannot uphold it; the less so, as it 
sometimes requires the most hazardous hypotheses as to geological convulsions, 
upheavals and submergences in order to explain the occurrence of a single 
mammal. 
A. jy. Pelzeln in a paper entitled “Africa-Indien”, published 1875 (see: 
Verh. z.-b. Ges. Wien p. 33), adopted the line; he considered Celebes as 
belonging to the Australian Region and enunciated as peculiar bird-genera (p. 48) ; 
Monachalcyon , Cittura, Ceycopsis^ Artamides, Gazzola^ Streptodtta ^ Scissirostrum, 
Enodes, Basileornis, Prioniturus and Megacephalon. He takes as identical (p. 47) 
Scops manadensis from Celebes and Madagascar, and Ortygometra Jlavirostris from 
Celebes and Africa, and mentions eighteen species which are common to the 
Ethiopian and the Indo-Malayan Region. In 1876 he confirmed his general 
conclusion in a paper on the Malayan mammalia (see: Eestschr. z.-b. Ges. p. 53). 
P. J. Veth, in 1875, gave a lecture on the line before the International 
Geographical Congress in Paris (“Observations sur les lignes de Wallace”: C. 
R. Congr. Int. des sc. geogr. a Paris, 1878, 305), and treated the matter with the 
acumen usual to him. He said that it rests on an inadequate basis hydrographically, 
that the flora was not taken into consideration, that Wallace only referred to 
mammals, birds, some insects and land-shells instead of to the whole fauna; that it is, 
therefore, zoologically insufficiently proved, and that it is not evinced by the facts 
of anthropology (see, also, 1. c., p. 276 and Veth’s translation of Wallace’s paper: 
“Over de physische Geogr. van den Ind. Arch.”, with notes, Zalt-Bommel, 1865). 
J. A. Allen, 1878 (“The Geographical Distribution of the Mammalia con- 
sidered in relation to the principal ontological regions of the earth and the laws 
that govern the distribution of animal life”: Bull, of the U. S. Geol. and Geogr. 
