The Malay Archipelago - Volume 2 - A Narrative Of Travel By Alfred Russel Wallace.






























































 -  A shallow sea, nowhere exceeding fifty fathoms,
extends quite across to New Guinea, a distance of about a hundred
and - Page 262
The Malay Archipelago - Volume 2 - A Narrative Of Travel By Alfred Russel Wallace. - Page 262 of 412 - First - Home

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A Shallow Sea, Nowhere Exceeding Fifty Fathoms, Extends Quite Across To New Guinea, A Distance Of About A Hundred And Fifty Miles.

An elevation of only three hundred feet would convert the whole of this sea into moderately high land, and

Make the Aru Islands a portion of New Guinea; and the rivers which have their mouths at Utanata and Wamuka, might then have flowed on across Aru, in the channels which are now occupied by salt water. Then the intervening land sunk down, we must suppose the land that now constitutes Aru to have remained nearly stationary, a not very improbable supposition, when we consider the great extent of the shallow sea, and the very small amount of depression the land need have undergone to produce it.

But the fact of the Aru Islands having once been connected with New Guinea does not rest on this evidence alone. There is such a striking resemblance between the productions of the two countries as only- exists between portions of a common territory. I collected one hundred species of land-birds in the Aru Islands, and about eighty of them, have been found on the mainland of New Guinea. Among these are the great wingless cassowary, two species of heavy brush turkeys, and two of short winged thrushes; which could certainly not have passed over the 150 miles of open sea to the coast of New Guinea. This barrier is equally effectual in the case of many other birds which live only in the depths of the forest, as the kinghunters (Dacelo gaudichaudi), the fly-catching wrens (Todopsis), the great crown pigeon (Goura coronata), and the small wood doves (Ptilonopus perlatus, P. aurantiifrons, and P. coronulatus). Now, to show the real effect of such barrier, let us take the island of Ceram, which is exactly the same distance from New Guinea, but separated from it by a deep sea. Cut of about seventy land-birds inhabiting Ceram, only fifteen are found in New Guinea, and none of these are terrestrial or forest-haunting species.

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