The
Largest And Most Beautiful Of The Clear-Winged Moths (Cocytia
D'urvillei) Is Found Here, As Well As The Large And Handsome
Green Moth (Nyctalemon Orontes).
The beetles furnish us with many
species of large size, and of the most brilliant metallic lustre,
among which the
Tmesisternus mirabilis, a longicorn beetle of a
golden green colour; the excessively brilliant rose-chafers,
Lomaptera wallacei and Anacamptorhina fulgida; one of the
handsomest of the Buprestidae, Calodema wallacei; and several
fine blue weevils of the genus Eupholus, are perhaps the most
conspicuous. Almost all the other orders furnish us with large or
extraordinary forms. The curious horned flies have already been
mentioned; and among the Orthoptera the great shielded
grasshoppers are the most remarkable. The species here figured
(Megalodon ensifer) has the thorax covered by a large triangular
horny shield, two and a half inches long, with serrated edges, a
somewhat wavy, hollow surface, and a faun median line, so as very
closely to resemble a leaf. The glossy wing-coverts (when fully
expanded, more than nine inches across) are of a fine green
colour and so beautifully veined as to imitate closely some of
the large shining tropical leaves. The body is short, and
terminated in the female by a long curved sword-like ovipositor
(not seen in the cut), and the legs are all long and strongly-
spined. These insects are sluggish in their motions, depending
for safety on their resemblance to foliage, their horny shield
and wing-coverts, and their spiny legs.
The large islands to the east of New Guinea are very little
known, but the occurrence of crimson lories, which are quite
absent from Australia, and of cockatoos allied to those of New
Guinea and the Moluccas, shows that they belong to the Papuan
group; and we are thus able to define the Malay Archipelago as
extending eastward to the Solomon's Islands. New Caledonia and
the New Hebrides, on the other hand, seem more nearly allied to
Australia; and the rest of the islands of the Pacific, though
very poor in all forms of life, possess a few peculiarities which
compel us to class them as a separate group. Although as a matter
of convenience I have always separated the Moluccas as a distinct
zoological group from New Guinea, I have at the same time pointed
out that its fauna was chiefly derived from that island, just as
that of Timor was chiefly derived from Australia. If we were
dividing the Australian region for zoological purposes alone, we
should form three great groups: one comprising Australia, Timor,
and Tasmania; another New Guinea, with the islands from Bouru to
the Solomon's group; and the third comprising the greater part of
the Pacific Islands.
The relation of the New Guinea fauna to that of Australia is very
close. It is best marked in the Mammalia by the abundance of
marsupials, and the almost complete absence of all other
terrestrial forms. In birds it is less striking, although still
very clear, for all the remarkable old-world forms which are
absent from the one are equally so from the other, such as
Pheasants, Grouse, Vultures, and Woodpeckers; while Cockatoos,
Broad-tailed Parrots, Podargi, and the great families of the
Honeysuckers and Brush-turkeys, with many others, comprising no
less than twenty-four genera of land-birds, are common to both
countries, and are entirely confined to them.
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