CHAP. XX.] 
CELEBES. 
425 
In 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. 1 
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 
Families of Malayan Birds not 
found in islands East of 
Celebes. 
Troglodytidae. 
Sittidae. 
Paridae. 
Liotrichidae. 
Phyllornithidae. 
Eurylaemidae. 
Picidae. 
Indicatoridae. 
Megalaemidae. 
Trogonidae. 
Phasianidae. 
Families of Moluccan Birds not 
found in islands West of 
Celebes. 
Paradiseidae. 
Meliphagidae. 
Cacatuidae. 
Platycercidae. 
Trichoglossidae. 
Nestoridae. 
