CHAP. XX.] 
CELEBES. 
427 
here and in the Moluccas ; a civet, Viverra tangalunga y 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 ( Babirusa 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. 
Probable 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 
