The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

442 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.in our aviaries, and pre-eminent both for size and beauty ; thecurious Trugon terrestris, wliich approaches the still morestrange Didunculus of Samoa ; and a new genus (Henicophaps),discovered by myself, which possesses a very long and powerfulbill, quite unlike that of any other pigeon.^ Among its sixteenkingfishers, it possesses the curious hook-billed Macrorhina, anda red and blue Tanysiptera, the most beautiful of that beautifulgenus. Among its perching birds are the fine genus of crow-Hke starlings, with bi'illiant plumage (Manucodia) ; the curiouspale-coloured crow (Gymnocorvus senex) ; the abnormal red andblack flycatcher (Peltops blainvillii) ; the curious little boatbilledflycatchers (Machserirhynchus) ; and the elegant blueflycatcher-wrens (Todopsis).The naturalist will obtain a clearer idea of the variety andinterest of the productions of this country, by the statement,that its land birds belong to 108 genera, of which 29 are exclusivelycharacteristic of it ; while 35 belong to that limited areawhich includes the Moluccas and North Australia, and whosespecies of these genera have been entirely derived from NewGuinea. About one-half of the New Guinea genera are found alsoin Australia, about one-third in India and the Indo-Malay islands.A very curious fact, not hitherto sufliciently noticed, is theappearance of a pure Malay element in the birds of New Guinea.We find two species of Eupetes, a curious Malayan genus alliedto the forked-tail water-chats ; two of Alcippe, an Indian andMalay wren-like form ; an Araclmothera, quite resembling thespider-catching honeysuckers of Malacca ; two species of Gracula,the Mynahs of India ; and a curious little black Prionochilus,a saw-billed fruit-pecker, undoubtedly allied to the Malayanform, although perhaps a distinct genus. Now not one of thesebirds, or anything allied to them, occurs in the Moluccas, or(with one exception) in Celebes or Australia ; and as they aremost of them birds of short flight, it is very difiicult to conceivehow or when they could have ci'ossed the space of morethan a thousand miles, which now separates them from theirnearest allies. Such facts point to changes of land and sea ona large scale, and at a rate which, measured by the time requiredfor a change of species, must be termed rapid. By speculatingon such changes we may easily see how partial Avaves of immigrationmay have entered New Guinea, and how all trace oftheir passage may have been obliterated by the subsequentdisappearance of the intervening land.There is nothing that the study of geology teaches us that ismore certain or more impressive than the extreme instabilityof the earth's surface. Everywhere beneath our feet we findproofs that what is land has been sea, and that where seas nowspread out has once been land ;and that this change from sea1 Nearly ninety species of piseons are now known to inhabit New Guinea and theadjacent Papuan Islands, while the parrot tribe in the same area has increased to abouteighty species. Nearly 900 species of Papuan birds are now known.