These Were Already Sufficiently Protected
From Their Enemies, And Did Not Require Increased Power Of
Escaping From Them.
It is not at all clear what effect the
peculiar curvature of the wings has in modifying flight.
Another curious feature in the zoology of Celebes is also worthy
of attention. I allude to the absence of several groups which are
found on both sides of it, in the Indo-Malay islands as well as
in the Moluccas; and which thus seem to be unable, from some
unknown cause, to obtain a footing in the intervening island. In
Birds we have the two families of Podargidae and Laniadae, which
range over the whole Archipelago and into Australia, and which
yet have no representative in Celebes. The genera Ceyx among
Kingfishers, Criniger among Thrushes, Rhipidura among
Flycatchers, Calornis among Starlings, and Erythrura among
Finches, are all found in the Moluccas as well as in Borneo and
Java - but not a single species belonging to any one of them is
found in Celebes. Among insects, the large genus of Rose-chafers,
Lomaptera, is found in every country and island between India and
New Guinea, except Celebes. This unexpected absence of many
groups, from one limited district in the very centre of their
area of distribution, is a phenomenon not altogether unique, but,
I believe, nowhere so well marked as in this case; and it
certainly adds considerably to the strange character of this
remarkable island.
The anomalies and eccentricities in the natural history of
Celebes which I have endeavoured to sketch in this chapter, all
point to an origin in a remote antiquity. The history of extinct
animals teaches us that their distribution in time and in space
are strikingly similar. The rule is, that just as the productions
of adjacent areas usually resemble each other closely, so do the
productions of successive periods in the same area; and as the
productions of remote areas generally differ widely, so do the
productions of the same area at remote epochs. We are therefore
led irresistibly to the conclusion, that change of species, still
more of generic and of family form, is a matter of time. But time
may have led to a change of species in one country, while in
another the forms have been more permanent, or the change may
have gone on at an equal rate but in a different manner in both.
In either case, the amount of individuality in the productions of
a district will be to some extent a measure of the time that a
district has been isolated from those that surround it. Judged by
this standard, Celebes must be one of the oldest parts of the
Archipelago. It probably dates from a period not only anterior to
that when Borneo, Java, and Sumatra were separated from the
continent, but from that still more remote epoch when the land
that now constitutes these islands had not risen above the ocean.
Such an antiquity is necessary, to account for the number of
animal forms it possesses, which show no relation to those of
India or Australia, but rather with those of Africa; and we are
led to speculate on the possibility of there having once existed
a continent in the Indian Ocean which might serve as a bridge to
connect these distant countries.
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