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

—;CHAP. xaii.J THE AUSTRALIAN REGION. 419cuius is Malayan, and especially Philippine, but itreaches as faras Mysol. Treron is here at its eastern limit, and is representedin Bouru and Ceram by one of the most beautiful species.Ncopus, a Malayan eagle, is said to occur in the Moluccas. Wefind then only three characteristic Indo-Malay • types in theMoluccas,Griniger, Batrachostomus, and Treron.All are representedby distinct and well marked species, indicating a somewhatremote period since their ancestors entered the districtbut allare birds of considerable powers of flight, so that a verylittle extension of the islands in a south-westerly directionwould afford the means of transmission, but this could not wellhave been by way of Celebes, because the two former genera areunknown in that island.It is evident, therefore, that the Moluccas are wholly Papuanin their zoology;yet they are no less clearly derivative, and musthave obtained their original immigrants under conditions thatrendered a full representation of the fauna impossible. Suchremarkable and dominant types asthe eleven genera of Paradiseidse,with Cracticus, Rectcs,Todopsis, Machccrirhynchus, Ge?ygone,Dacelo, Podargus, Cyclopsitta, Microglossum., Nasiterna, Chalcopsitta,and Goura,—all characteristic Papuan groups, found inalmost all the islands and most of them very abundant, aretotally absent from the Moluccas. Taking this, in conjunctionwith theyetabsence of the two genera of Papuan kangaroos andthe other smaller groups of marsupials, and we must beconvinced that the Moluccas cannot be mere fragments of theold Papuan land, or they would certainly, in some one orotherof their large and fertile islands, have preserved a more completerepresentation of the parent fauna. Most of the Mol^canbirds are very distinct from the allied species of New Guineaand this would imply that the entrance of the original formstook place at a remote period. The two peculiar genera withclearly Papuan affinities, show the same thing.The cassowary,found only in the large island of Ceram and distinct from anyPapuan species, would however seem to have required a landconnection for its introduction, almost as much as any of thelarger mammalia.