2. Paradoxurus Fasciatus; A Civet Cat, Very Common Over A Large Part Of The Archipelago.

3.

Felis megalotis; a tiger cat, said to be peculiar to Timor, where it exists only in the interior, and is very rare. Its nearest allies are in Java. 4. Cervus timoriensis; a deer, closely allied to the Javan and Moluccan species, if distinct. 5. A wild pig, Sus timoriensis; perhaps the same as some of the Moluccan species. 6. A shrew mouse, Sorex tenuis; supposed to be peculiar to Timor. 7. An Eastern opossum, Cuscus orientalis; found also in the Moluccas, if not a distinct species.

The fact that not one of these species is Australia or nearly allied to any Australian form, is strongly corroborative of the opinion that Timor has never formed a part of that country; as in that case some kangaroo or other marsupial animal would almost certainly be found there. It is no doubt very difficult to account for the presence of some of the few mammals that do exist in Timor, especially the tiger cat and the deer. We must consider, however, that during thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, these islands and the seas between them have been subjected to volcanic action. The land has been raised and has sunk again; the straits have been narrowed or widened; many of the islands may have been joined and dissevered again; violent floods have again and again devastated the mountains and plains, carrying out to sea hundreds of forest trees, as has often happened during volcanic eruptions in Java; and it does not seem improbable that once in a thousand, or ten thousand years, there should have occurred such a favourable combination of circumstances as would lead to the migration of two or three land animals from one island to another. This is all that we need ask to account for the very scanty and fragmentary group of Mammalia which now inhabit the large island of Timor. The deer may very probably have been introduced by man, for the Malays often keep tame fawns; and it may not require a thousand, or even five hundred years, to establish new characters in an animal removed to a country so different in climate and vegetation as is Timor from the Moluccas. I have not mentioned horses, which are often thought to be wild in Timor, because there are no grounds whatever for such a belief. The Timor ponies have every one an owner, and are quite as much domesticated animals as the cattle on a South American hacienda.

I have dwelt at some length upon the origin of the Timorese fauna because it appears to be a most interesting and instructive problem. It is very seldom that we can trace the animals of a district so clearly as we can in this case to two definite sources, and still more rarely that they furnish such decisive evidence of the time, the manner, and the proportions of their introduction. We have here a group of Oceanic Islands in miniature - islands which have never formed part of the adjacent lands, although so closely approaching them; and their productions have the characteristics of true Oceanic islands slightly modified.

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