While It Is Poor In The Actual Number Of Its
Species, It Is Yet Wonderfully Rich In Peculiar Forms, Many Of
Which Are Singular Or Beautiful, And Are In Some Cases Absolutely
Unique Upon The Globe.
We behold here the curious phenomenon of
groups of insects changing their outline in a similar manner when
compared with those of surrounding islands, suggesting some
common cause which never seems to have acted elsewhere in exactly
the same way.
Celebes, therefore, presents us with a most
striking example of the interest that attaches to the study of
the geographical distribution of animals. We can see that their
present distribution upon the globe is the result of all the more
recent changes the earth's surface has undergone; and, by a
careful study of the phenomena, we are sometimes able to deduce
approximately what those past changes must have been in order to
produce the distribution we find to exist. In the comparatively
simple case of the Timor group, we were able to deduce these
changes with some approach to certainty. In the much more
complicated case of Celebes, we can only indicate their general
nature, since we now see the result, not of any single or recent
change only, but of a whole series of the later revolutions which
have resulted in the present distribution of land in the Eastern
Hemisphere.
CHAPTER XIX.
BANDA.
(DECEMBER 1857, MAY 1859, APRIL 1861.)
THE Dutch mail steamer in which I travelled from Macassar to
Banda and Amboyna was a roomy and comfortable vessel, although it
would only go six miles an hour in the finest weather.
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