2 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
but on the whole fairly accurately. Thus, to the west 
we have the great islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java 
with strongly marked Asiatic affinities; Celebes, occupy¬ 
ing a central position and exhibiting a fauna so peculiar 
as to justify separate consideration; the Lesser Sunda 
Islands, New Guinea, Melanesia, and Australia; the 
numerous lesser archipelagoes of the Pacific ; and, finally, 
New Zealand, a country so different from every other in 
its fauna, that of late many naturalists have considered 
that it should form a separate zoological region. 
Although, as just intimated, there are many reasons 
why Australia should not be treated apart from New 
Guinea, the rapid spread of civilisation in the former 
continent, and its situation to so large an extent within 
the temperate zone, have more or less differentiated it. 
Accordingly, since it has been found necessary to divide 
the “ Australasia ” of the present series into two volumes, 
the following pages will deal only with the tropical por¬ 
tion of the Eastern Archipelago, leaving Australia and 
New Zealand for treatment in a separate volume. The 
region which we shall now consider may be taken to 
consist of four divisions, each of which has a distinctive 
name. These are,—(1) The Malay Archipelago or 
Malaysia, including the islands from Sumatra to the 
Philippines and Moluccas, and forming the home of the 
true Malay race; (2) Melanesia, including the chief 
islands inhabited by the black, frizzly-haired race from 
New Guinea to the Fiji Islands; (3) Polynesia, includ¬ 
ing all the larger islands of the central Pacific from the 
Sandwich Islands southward; and (4) Micronesia, in¬ 
cluding the smaller western islands of the North Pacific, 
inhabited by people of mixed origin. 
These will be further subdivided as occasion requires, 
and will be taken in the order above indicated. 
