The Great Contrast Between The Two Divisions Of The Archipelago
Is Nowhere So Abruptly Exhibited As On Passing From The Island Of
Bali To That Of Lombock, Where The Two Regions Are In Closest
Proximity.
In Bali we have barbets, fruit-thrushes, and
woodpeckers; on passing over to Lombock these are seen no more,
but we have abundance of cockatoos, honeysuckers, and brush-
turkeys, which are equally unknown in Bali, or any island further
west.
[I was informed, however, that there were a few cockatoos
at one spot on the west of Bali, showing that the intermingling
of the productions of these islands is now going on.] The strait
is here fifteen miles wide, so that we may pass in two hours from
one great division of the earth to another, differing as
essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America. If
we travel from Java or Borneo to Celebes or the Moluccas, the
difference is still more striking. In the first, the forests
abound in monkeys of many kinds, wild cats, deer, civets, and
otters, and numerous varieties of squirrels are constantly met
with. In the latter none of these occur; but the prehensile-
tailed Cuscus is almost the only terrestrial mammal seen, except
wild pigs, which are found in all the islands, and deer (which
have probably been recently introduced) in Celebes and the
Moluccas. The birds which are most abundant in the Western
Islands are woodpeckers, barbets, trogons, fruit-thrushes, and
leaf-thrushes; they are seen daily, and form the great
ornithological features of the country.
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