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

420 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part hi.Taking all the facts into consideration, I would suggest as themost probable explanation, that if the Moluccas ever formed partof the main Papuan land, they were separated at an early date,and subsequently so greatly submerged as to destroy a largeproportion of their fauna. They have since risen, and haveprobably been larger than at present, and rather more closelyapproximated to the parent land, whence they received a considerableimmigration of such animals as were adapted to crossnarrow seas. This gave them several Papuan forms, but stillleft them without a number of the types more especially confinedto the forest depths, or powerful enough to combat thegales which often blow weaker flyers out to sea. Most of thebirds whose absence from the Moluccas is so conspicuous belongto one or other of these classes.Among the most characteristic birds of the Moluccas are thehandsome crimson lories of the genera Lorius and Eos. Theseare found in every island (but not in Celebes or the Timorgroup) ;and a fine species of Eos, peculiar to the small islands ofSiau and Sanguir, just north of Celebes, obliges us to placethese with the Moluccas instead of with the former island, towhich they seem most naturally to belong.The crimson parrotsof the genus Eclectus are almost equally characteristic of theMoluccas, and add greatly to the brilliancy of the ornithology ofthese favoured islands.Reptiles.—The Reptiles, so far as known, appear to agree intheir distribution with the other vertebrates. In some smallcollections from Ceram there were no less than six of the generapeculiar to the Australian region, and which were before onlyknofn from Australia itself. These are, of snakes, Liasis andEnygrus, genera of Pythonidae ;with Diemenia and Acanthophis(Elapidae) ; of lizards, Cyclodus, a genus of Scincidae ; and ofAmphibia, a tree-frog of the genus Pelodryas.Insects— Peculiarities of the Moluccan Fauna.—In insects theMoluccas are hardly, if at all, inferior to New Guinea itself.Theislands abound in grand Papilios of the largest size and extremebeauty ;and it is a very remarkable fact, that when the closelyalliedspecies of the Moluccas and New Guinea arecompared,