It Possesses Gold, Copper,
And Coal, Hot Springs And Geysers, Sedimentary And Volcanic Rocks
And Coralline Limestone, Alluvial Plains, Abrupt Hills And Lofty
Mountains, A Moist Climate, And A Grand And Luxuriant Forest
Vegetation.
The few days I stayed here produced me several new insects, but
scarcely any birds.
Butterflies and birds are in fact remarkably
scarce in these forests. One may walk a whole day and not see
more than two or three species of either. In everything but
beetles, these eastern islands are very deficient compared with
the western (Java, Borneo, &c.), and much more so if compared
with the forests of South America, where twenty or thirty species
of butterflies may be caught every day, and on very good days a
hundred, a number we can hardly reach here in months of
unremitting search. In birds there is the same difference. In
most parts of tropical America we may always find some species of
woodpecker tanager, bush shrike, chatterer, trogon, toucan,
cuckoo, and tyrant-flycatcher; and a few days' active search will
produce more variety than can be here met with in as many months.
Yet, along with this poverty of individuals and of species, there
are in almost every class and order, some one, or two species of
such extreme beauty or singularity, as to vie with, or even
surpass, anything that even South America can produce.
One afternoon when I was arranging my insects, and surrounded by
a crowd of wondering spectators, I showed one of them how to look
at a small insect with a hand-lens, which caused such evident
wonder that all the rest wanted to see it too. I therefore fixed
the glass firmly to a piece of soft wood at the proper focus, and
put under it a little spiny beetle of the genus Hispa, and then
passed it round for examination. The excitement was immense. Some
declared it was a yard long; others were frightened, and
instantly dropped it, and all were as much astonished, and made
as much shouting and gesticulation, as children at a pantomime,
or at a Christmas exhibition of the oxyhydrogen microscope. And
all this excitement was produced by a little pocket lens, an inch
and a half focus, and therefore magnifying only four or five
times, but which to their unaccustomed eyes appeared to enlarge a
hundred fold.
On the last day of my stay here, one of my hunters succeeded in
finding and shooting the beautiful Nicobar pigeon, of which I had
been so long in search. None of the residents had ever seen it,
which shows that it is rare and slay. My specimen was a female in
beautiful condition, and the glassy coppery and green of its
plumage, the snow-white tail and beautiful pendent feathers of
the neck, were greatly admired. I subsequently obtained a
specimen in New Guinea; and once saw it in the Kaiķa islands. It
is found also in some small islands near Macassar, in others near
Borneo; and in the Nicobar islands, whence it receives its name.
It is a ground feeder, only going upon trees to roost, and is a
very heavy fleshy bird. This may account far the fact of its
being found chiefly on very small islands, while in the western
half of the Archipelago, it seems entirely absent from the larger
ones. Being a ground feeder it is subject to the attacks of
carnivorous quadrupeds, which are not found in the very small
islands. Its wide distribution over the whole length of the
Archipelago; from extreme west to east, is however very
extraordinary, since, with the exception of a few of the birds of
prey, not a single land bird has so wide a range. Ground-feeding
birds are generally deficient in power of extended flight, and
this species is so bulky and heavy that it appears at first sight
quite unable to fly a mile. A closer examination shows, however,
that its wings are remarkably large, perhaps in proportion to its
size larger than those of any other pigeon, and its pectoral
muscles are immense. A fact communicated to me by the son of my
friend Mr. Duivenboden of Ternate, would show that, in accordance
with these peculiarities of structure, it possesses the power of
flying long distances. Mr. D. established an oil factory on a
small coral island, a hundred miles north of New Guinea, with no
intervening land. After the island had been settled a year, and
traversed in every direction, his son paid it a visit; and just
as the schooner was coming to an anchor, a bird was seen flying
from seaward which fell into the water exhausted before it could
reach the shore. A boat was sent to pick it up, and it was found
to be a Nicobar pigeon, which must have come from New Guinea, and
flown a hundred miles, since no such bird previously inhabited
the island.
This is certainly a very curious case of adaptation to an unusual
and exceptional necessity. The bird does not ordinarily require
great powers of flight, since it lives in the forest, feeds on
fallen fruits, and roosts in low trees like other ground pigeons.
The majority of the individuals, therefore, can never make full
use of their enormously powerful wings, till the exceptional case
occurs of an individual being blown out to sea, or driven to
emigrate by the incursion of some carnivorous animal, or the
pressure of scarcity of food. A modification exactly opposite to
that which produced the wingless birds (the Apteryx, Cassowary,
and Dodo), appears to have here taken place; and it is curious
that in both cases an insular habitat should have been the moving
cause. The explanation is probably the same as that applied by
Mr. Darwin to the case of the Madeira beetles, many of which are
wingless, while some of the winged ones have the wings better
developed than the same species on the continent. It was
advantageous to these insects either never to fly at all, and
thus not run the risk of being blown out to sea, or to fly so
well as to he able either to return to land, or to migrate safely
to the continent.
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