The geographical distribution of animals, with a study of the relations ...

——352 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part hi.the Malay peninsula, it is not likely that many of these wellmarked forms will be discovered in these countries.There are also a considerable number of species of birdscommon to Malacca, Sumatra, and Borneo, but represented inJava by distinct though closely allied species. Such are,Venilia malaccensis (represented in Java by) V. miniata.Drymocataphus nigrocapitatus „ „ D. capistratusMalacopteron coronatum „M. rujifrons.Irena cyanea „Ploceus baya „Loriculus galgulus „Ptilopus jambu „I. turcosa.P. hypoxantha.L. pusillus.P. porphyreus.Now if we look at our map of the region, and consider theposition of Java with regard to Borneo, Sumatra, and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, the facts just pointed out appear mostanomalous and perplexing. First, we have Java and Sumatraforming one continuous line of volcanoes, separated by a verynarrow strait, and with all the appearance of having formed onecontinuous land ;yet their productions differ considerably, andthose of Sumatra show the closest resemblance to those ofBorneo, an island ten times further off than Java and differingwidely in the absence of volcanoes or any continuous range oflofty mountains. Then again, not only does Java differ fromthese two, but it agrees with a country beyond them botha country from which they seem to have a much better chanceto have been supplied by immigration than Java has, and tohave (almost necessarily)participated, even more largely, in thebenefits of any means of transmission capable of reaching thelatter island. Yet more; whatever changes have occurred tobring about the anomalous state of things that exists must havebeen, zoologically and geologically, recent ; for the strange crossaffinitiesbetween Java and the Indo-Chinese continent (inwhich Sumatra and Borneo have not participated), as well asthat between Malacca, Sumatra, and Borneo (in which Java hasnot participated) areexhibited, in many cases by community ofspecies, in others by the presence of very closely allied formsof the same genera, of mammalia and birds.Now we know that