130 
Introduction; Geographical Distribution. 
The result of our study of the bii'ds of Celebes, as well as of those of the 
countries around, is that by its Avifauna Celebes has far stronger connections 
with the Philippines than with any of the other neighbouring lands, and that 
the relation of its birds with the Oriental Region is more than twice as strong 
as with the Australian Region. 
The line between Celebes and Borneo, though not that between Bali and 
liombok, no doubt represents a conspicuous faunistic frontier, which remains un- 
altered even if the oldest continental frontier in earlier times was more to the 
east, but this line between Celebes and Borneo has not the fundamental signi- 
ficance which is still attributed to it by many writers. Even to-day the broad 
strait is nearly bridged over by shallows between South Celebes and Borneo (see 
map I). The line is not the western frontier of the Australian Region. The 
origin of the Celebesian Avifauna is principally an Asiatic one, but Celebes as 
a whole, or as a group of islands, was separated early from the continent, or 
never was intimately connected with it; its Avifauna, therefore, remained poor 
and must be pronounced an impoverished Asiatic one, but in consequence of 
isolation, peculiar forms were developed. The Papuan elements in it can be 
simply explained in view of the geographical position by the dispersal of birds 
through flight. This agrees very well with the results arrived at by Prof. Weber 
and Prof. v. Martens and others (see above pp. 85 , 87 et seq.). 
The special faunas of Celebes, however, and of all islands of the East Indian 
Archipelago are far from worked out and w^e shall not live to see this. It will 
be the labour of a century and more. The future, therefore, only can decide, 
whether the ornithological facts as at present known teach us correctly that 
Celebes belongs to the Oriental Region and not to the Australian, and 
that it is most appropriate and safe to adopt a Transition-Zone between 
these two Regions, comprising a Celebesian Area, besides severally a 
Philippine, a Moluccan and a Lesser Sundan Area, of which the Celebesian 
has been treated of as to its Avifauna in our present essay. 
After all we have not been able to discover anything very extraordinary 
about the birds of the island of Celebes. Its most striking feature is not that it 
has so many highly peculiar forms, but so extremely few. It has nothing among 
its birds to compare with a Dodo, or a Kiwi; it has not even a single peculiar 
avian family; only a few well marked peculiar genera, a large number of well 
characterized species belonging to genera not peculiar to the island, a still larger 
number of less well characterized species, local races or “subspecies”, others 
which only very close observers believe they can discriminate ; while the rest are 
by common consent termed absolutely identical with the individuals of their 
kind in the neighbouring lands. Islands like New Caledonia and Piji have in 
proportion to their size quite as much that is peculiar about them , as has 
Celebes. The chief interest in the latter depends upon its intermediate position 
between Asia and Australia, the faunas of which are so vastly different. 
