No doubt the system here sketched seems open to serious objection. It is to a certain extent despotic, and interferes with free trade, free labour, and free communication. A native cannot leave his village without a pa.s.s, and cannot engage himself to any merchant or captain without a Government permit. The coffee has all to be sold to Government, at less than half the price that the local merchant would give for it, and he consequently cries out loudly against "monopoly"
and "oppression." He forgets, however, that the coffee plantations were established by the Government at great outlay of capital and skill; that it gives free education to the people, and that the monopoly is in lieu of taxation. He forgets that the product he wants to purchase and make a profit by, is the creation of the Government, without whom the people would still be savages. He knows very well that free trade would, as its first result, lead to the importation of whole cargoes of arrack, which would be carried over the country and exchanged for coffee. That drunkenness and poverty would spread over the land; that the public coffee plantations would not be kept up; that the quality and quant.i.ty of the coffee would soon deteriorate; that traders and merchants would get rich, but that the people would relapse into poverty and barbarism.
That such is invariably the result of free trade with any savage tribes who possess a valuable product, native or cultivated, is well known to those who have visited such people; but we might even antic.i.p.ate from general principles that evil results would happen.
If there is one thing rather than another to which the grand law of continuity or development will apply, it is to human progress. There are certain stages through which society must pa.s.s in its onward march from barbarism to civilization. Now one of these stages has always been some form or other of despotism, such as feudalism or servitude, or a despotic paternal government; and we have every reason to believe that it is not possible for humanity to leap over this transition epoch, and pa.s.s at once from pure savagery to free civilization. The Dutch system attempts to supply this missing link, and to bring the people on by gradual steps to that higher civilization, which we (the English) try to force upon them at once. Our system has always failed. We demoralize and we extirpate, but we never really civilize. Whether the Dutch system can permanently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be possible to compress the work of ten centuries into one; but at all events it takes nature as a guide, and is therefore, more deserving of success, and more likely to succeed, than ours.
There is one point connected with this question which I think the Missionaries might take up with great physical and moral results. In this beautiful and healthy country, and with abundance of food and necessaries, the population does not increase as it ought to do. I can only impute this to one cause. Infant mortality, produced by neglect while the mothers are working in the plantations, and by general ignorance of the conditions of health in infants. Women all work, as they have always been accustomed to do. It is no hardship to them, but I believe is often a pleasure and relaxation. They either take their infants with them, in which case they leave them in some shady spot on the ground, going at intervals to give them nourishment, or they leave them at home in the care of other children too young to work. Under neither of these circ.u.mstances can infants be properly attended to, and great mortality is the result, keeping the increase of population far below the rate which the general prosperity of the country and the universality of marriage would lead us to expect. This is a matter in which the Government is directly interested, since it is by the increase of the population alone that there can be any large and permanent increase in the production of coffee. The Missionaries should take up the question because, by inducing married women to confine themselves to domestic duties, they will decidedly promote a higher civilization, and directly increase the health and happiness of the whole community. The people are so docile and so willing to adopt the manners and customs of Europeans, that the change might be easily effected by merely showing them that it was a question of morality and civilization, and an essential step in their progress towards an equality with their white rulers.
After a fortnight"s stay at Rurukan, I left that pretty and interesting village in search of a locality and climate more productive of birds and insects. I pa.s.sed the evening with the Controlleur of Tondano, and the next morning at nine, left in a small boat for the head of the lake, a distance of about ten miles. The lower end of the lake is bordered by swamps and marshes of considerable extent, but a little further on, the hills come down to the water"s edge and give it very much the appearance of a greet river, the width being about two miles. At the upper end is the village of Kakas, where I dined with the head man in a good house like those I have already described; and then went on to Langowan, four miles distant over a level plain. This was the place where I had been recommended to stay, and I accordingly unpacked my baggage and made myself comfortable in the large house devoted to visitors. I obtained a man to shoot for me, and another to accompany me the next day to the forest, where I was in hopes of finding a good collecting ground.
In the morning after breakfast I started off, but found I had four miles to walk over a wearisome straight road through coffee plantations before I could get to the forest, and as soon as I did so, it came on to rain heavily and did not cease until night. This distance to walk every day was too far for any profitable work, especially when the weather was so uncertain. I therefore decided at once that I must go further on, until I found someplace close to or in a forest country. In the afternoon my friend Mr. Bensneider arrived, together with the Controlleur of the next district, called Belang, from whom I learned that six miles further on there was a village called Panghu, which had been recently formed and had a good deal of forest close to it; and he promised me the use of a small house if I liked to go there.
The next morning I went to see the hot-springs and mud volcanoes, for which this place is celebrated. A picturesque path among plantations and ravines brought us to a beautiful circular basin about forty feet in diameter, bordered by a calcareous ledge, so uniform and truly curved, that it looked like a work of art. It was filled with clear water very near the boiling point, and emitted clouds of steam with a strong sulphureous odour. It overflows at one point and forms a little stream of hot water, which at a hundred yards" distance is still too hot to hold the hand in. A little further on, in a piece of rough wood, were two other springs not so regular in outline, but appearing to be much hotter, as they were in a continual state of active ebullition. At intervals of a few minutes, a great escape of steam or gas took place, throwing up a column of water three or four feet high.
We then went to the mud-springs, which are about a mile off, and are still more curious. On a sloping tract of ground in a slight hollow is a small lake of liquid mud, with patches of blue, red, or white, and in many places boiling and bubbling most furiously. All around on the indurated clay are small wells and craters full of boiling mud. These seem to be forming continually, a small hole appearing first, which emits jets of steam and boiling mud, which upon hardening, forms a little cone with a crater in the middle. The ground for some distance is very unsafe, as it is evidently liquid at a small depth, and bends with pressure like thin ice. At one of the smaller, marginal jets which I managed to approach, I held my hand to see if it was really as hot as it looked, when a little drop of mud that spurted on to my finger scalded like boiling water.
A short distance off, there was a flat bare surface of rock as smooth and hot as an oven floor, which was evidently an old mud-pool, dried up and hardened. For hundreds of yards around where there were banks of reddish and white clay used for whitewash, it was still so hot close to the surface that the hand could hardly bear to be held in cracks a few inches deep, and from which arose a strong sulphureous vapour. I was informed that some years back a French gentleman who visited these springs ventured too near the liquid mud, when the crust gave way and he was engulfed in the horrible caldron.
This evidence of intense heat so near the surface over a large tract of country was very impressive, and I could hardly divest myself of the notion that some terrible catastrophe might at any moment devastate the country. Yet it is probable that all these apertures are really safety-valves, and that the inequalities of the resistance of various parts of the earth"s crust will always prevent such an acc.u.mulation of force as would be required to upheave and overwhelm any extensive area.
About seven miles west of this is a volcano which was in eruption about thirty years before my visit, presenting a magnificent appearance and covering the surrounding country with showers of ashes. The plains around the lake formed by the intermingling and decomposition of volcanic products are of amazing fertility, and with a little management in the rotation of crops might be kept in continual cultivation. Rice is now grown on them for three or four years in succession, when they are left fallow for the same period, after which rice or maize can be again grown. Good rice produces thirty-fold, and coffee trees continue bearing abundantly for ten or fifteen years, without any manure and with scarcely any cultivation.
I was delayed a day by incessant rain, and then proceeded to Panghu, which I reached just before the daily rain began at 11 A.M. After leaving the summit level of the lake basin, the road is carried along the slope of a fine forest ravine. The descent is a long one, so that I estimated the village to be not more than 1,500 feet above the sea, yet I found the morning temperature often 69, the same as at Tondano at least 600 or 700 feet higher. I was pleased with the appearance of the place, which had a good deal of forest and wild country around it; and found prepared for me a little house consisting only of a verandah and a back room. This was only intended for visitors to rest in, or to pa.s.s a night, but it suited me very well. I was so unfortunate, however, as to lose both my hunters just at this time. One had been left at Tondano with fever and diarrhoea, and the other was attacked at Langowan with inflammation of the chest, and as his case looked rather bad I had him sent back to Menado. The people here were all so busy with their rice-harvest, which was important for them to finish owing to the early rains, that I could get no one to shoot for me.
During the three weeks that I stayed at Panghu it rained nearly every day, either in the afternoon only, or all day long; but there were generally a few hours" sunshine in the morning, and I took advantage of these to explore the roads and paths, the rocks and ravines, in search of insects. These were not very abundant, yet I saw enough to convince me that the locality was a good one, had I been there at the beginning instead of at the end of the dry season. The natives brought me daily a few insects obtained at the Sagueir palms, including some fine Cetonias and stag-beetles. Two little boys were very expert with the blowpipe, and brought me a good many small birds, which they shot with pellets of clay. Among these was a pretty little flower-p.e.c.k.e.r of a new species (Prionochilus aureolimbatus), and several of the loveliest honeysuckers I had yet seen. My general collection of birds was, however, almost at a standstill; for though I at length obtained a man to shoot for me, he was not good for much, and seldom brought me more than one bird a day.
The best thing he shot was the large and rare fruit-pigeon peculiar to Northern Celebes (Carpophaga forsteni), which I had long been seeking.
I was myself very successful in one beautiful group of insects, the tiger-beetles, which seem more abundant and varied here than anywhere else in the Archipelago. I first met with them on a cutting in the road, where a hard clayey bank was partially overgrown with mosses and small ferns. Here, I found running about, a small olive-green species which never took flight; and more rarely, a fine purplish black wingless insect, which was always found motionless in crevices, and was therefore, probably nocturnal. It appeared to me to form a new genus.
About the roads in the forest, I found the large and handsome Cicindela heros, which I had before obtained sparingly at Maca.s.sar; but it was in the mountain torrent of the ravine itself that I got my finest things.
On dead trunks overhanging the water and on the banks and foliage, I obtained three very pretty species of Cicindela, quite distinct in size, form, and colour, but having an almost identical pattern of pale spots.
I also found a single specimen of a most curious species with very long antennae. But my finest discovery here was the Cicindela gloriosa, which I found on mossy stones just rising above the water. After obtaining my first specimen of this elegant insect, I used to walk up the stream, watching carefully every moss-covered rock and stone. It was rather shy, and would often lead me on a long chase from stone to stone, becoming invisible every time it settled on the damp moss, owing to its rich velvety green colour. On some days I could only catch a few glimpses of it; on others I got a single specimen; and on a few occasions two, but never without a more or less active pursuit. This and several other species I never saw but in this one ravine.
Among the people here I saw specimens of several types, which, with the peculiarities of the languages, gives me some notion of their probable origin. A striking ill.u.s.tration of the low state of civilization of these people, until quite recently, is to be found in the great diversity of their languages. Villages three or four miles apart have separate dialects, and each group of three or four such villages has a distinct language quite unintelligible to all the rest; so that, until the recent introduction of Malay by the Missionaries, there must have been a bar to all free communication. These languages offer many peculiarities. They contain a Celebes-Malay element and a Papuan element, along with some radical peculiarities found also in the languages of the Siau and Sanguir islands further north, and therefore, probably derived from the Philippine Islands. Physical characteristics correspond. There are some of the less civilized tribes which have semi-Papuan features and hair, while in some villages the true Celebes or Bugis physiognomy prevails. The plateau of Tondano is chiefly inhabited by people nearly as white as the Chinese, and with very pleasing semi-European features. The people of Siau and Sanguir much resemble these, and I believe them to be perhaps immigrants from some of the islands of North Polynesia. The Papuan type will represent the remnant of the aborigines, while those of the Bugis character show the extension northward of the superior Malay races.
As I was wasting valuable time at Panghu, owing to the bad weather and the illness of my hunters, I returned to Menado after a stay of three weeks. Here I had a little touch of fever, and what with drying and packing all of my collections and getting fresh servants, it was a fortnight before I was again ready to start. I now went eastward over an undulating country skirting the great volcano of Klabat, to a village called Lempias, situated close to the extensive forest that covers the lower slopes of that mountain. My baggage was carried from village to village by relays of men; and as each change involved some delay, I did not reach my destination (a distance of eighteen miles) until sunset. I was wet through, and had to wait for an hour in an uncomfortable state until the first installment of my baggage arrived, which luckily contained my clothes, while the rest did not come in until midnight.
This being the district inhabited by that singular annual the Babirusa (Hog-deer), I inquired about skulls and soon obtained several in tolerable condition, as well as a fine one of the rare and curious "Sapi-utan" (Anoa depressicornis). Of this animal I had seen two living specimens at Menado, and was surprised at their great resemblance to small cattle, or still more to the Eland of South Africa. Their Malay name signifies "forest ox," and they differ from very small highbred oxen princ.i.p.ally by the low-hanging dewlap, and straight, pointed horns which slope back over the neck. I did not find the forest here so rich in insects as I had expected, and my hunters got me very few birds, but what they did obtain were very interesting. Among these were the rare forest Kingfisher (Cittura cyanotis), a small new species of Megapodius, and one specimen of the large and interesting Maleo (Megacephalon rubripes), to obtain which was one of my chief reasons for visiting this district. Getting no more, however, after ten days" search, I removed to Licoupang, at the extremity of the peninsula, a place celebrated for these birds, as well as for the Babirusa and Sapi-utan. I found here Mr. Goldmann, the eldest son of the Governor of the Moluccas, who was superintending the establishment of some Government salt-works. This was a better locality, and I obtained some fine b.u.t.terflies and very good birds, among which was one more specimen of the rare ground dove (Phlegaenas tristigmata), which I had first obtained near the Maros waterfall in South Celebes.
Hearing what I was particularly in search of, Mr. Goldmann kindly offered to make a hunting-party to the place where the "Maleos" are most abundant, a remote and uninhabited sea-beach about twenty miles distant.
The climate here was quite different from that on the mountains; not a drop of rain having fallen for four months; so I made arrangements to stay on the beach a week, in order to secure a good number of specimens.
We went partly by boat and partly through the forest, accompanied by the Major or head-man of Licoupang, with a dozen natives and about twenty dogs. On the way they caught a young Sapi-utan and five wild pigs. Of the former I preserved the head. This animal is entirely confined to the remote mountain forests of Celebes and one or two adjacent islands which form part of the same group. In the adults the head is black, with a white mark over each eye, one on each cheek and another on the throat.
The horns are very smooth and sharp when young, but become thicker and ridged at the bottom with age. Most naturalists consider this curious animal to be a small ox, but from the character of the horns, the fine coat of hair and the descending dewlap, it seemed closely to approach the antelopes.
Arrived at our destination, we built a but and prepared for a stay of some days--I to shoot and skin "Maleos", and Mr. Goldmann and the Major to hunt wild pigs, Babirusa, and Sapi-utan. The place is situated in the large bay between the islands of Limbe and Banca, and consists of steep beach more than a mile in length, of deep loose and coa.r.s.e black volcanic sand (or rather gravel), very fatiguing to walk over. It is bounded at each extremity by a small river with hilly ground beyond, while the forest behind the beach itself is tolerably level and its growth stunted. We probably have here an ancient lava stream from the Klabat volcano, which has flowed down a valley into the sea, and the decomposition of which has formed the loose black sand. In confirmation of this view, it may be mentioned that the beaches beyond the small rivers in both directions are of white sand.
It is in this loose, hot, black sand that those singular birds, the "Maleos" deposit their eggs. In the months of August and September, when there is little or no rain, they come down in pairs from the interior to this or to one or two other favourite spots, and scratch holes three or four feet deep, just above high-water mark, where the female deposits a single large egg, which she covers over with about a foot of sand--and then returns to the forest. At the end of ten or twelve days she comes again to the same spot to lay another egg, and each female bird is supposed to lay six or eight eggs during the season. The male a.s.sists the female in making the hole, coming down and returning with her. The appearance of the bird when walking on the beach is very handsome.
The glossy black and rosy white of the plumage, the helmeted head and elevated tail, like that of the common fowl, give a striking character, which their stately and somewhat sedate walk renders still more remarkable. There is hardly any difference between the s.e.xes, except that the casque or bonnet at the back of the head and the tubercles at the nostrils are a little larger, and the beautiful rosy salmon colour a little deeper in the male bird; but the difference is so slight that it is not always possible to tell a male from a female without dissection.
They run quickly, but when shot at or suddenly disturbed, take wing with a heavy noisy flight to some neighbouring tree, where they settle on a low branch; and, they probably roost at night in a similar situation.
Many birds lay in the same hole, for a dozen eggs are often found together; and these are so large that it is not possible for the body of the bird to contain more than one fully-developed egg at the same time.
In all the female birds which I shot, none of the eggs besides the one large one exceeded the size of peas, and there were only eight or nine of these, which is probably the extreme number a bird can lay in one season.
Every year the natives come for fifty miles round to obtain these eggs, which are esteemed as a great delicacy, and when quite fresh, are indeed delicious. They are richer than hens" eggs and of a finer favour, and each one completely fills an ordinary teacup, and forms with bread or rice a very good meal. The colour of the sh.e.l.l is a pale brick red, or very rarely pure white. They are elongate and very slightly smaller at one end, from four to four and a half inches long by two and a quarter or two and a half wide.
After the eggs are deposited in the sand, they are no further cared for by the mother. The young birds, upon breaking the sh.e.l.l, work their way up through the sand and run off at once to the forest; and I was a.s.sured by Mr. Duivenboden of Ternate, that they can fly the very day they are hatched. He had taken some eggs on board his schooner which hatched during the night, and in the morning the little birds flew readily across the cabin. Considering the great distances the birds come to deposit the eggs in a proper situation (often ten or fifteen miles) it seems extraordinary that they should take no further care of them. It is, however, quite certain that they neither do nor can watch them. The eggs being deposited by a number of hens in succession in the same hole, would render it impossible for each to distinguish its own; and the food necessary for such large birds (consisting entirely of fallen fruits) can only be obtained by roaming over an extensive district, so that if the numbers of birds which come down to this single beach in the breeding season, amounting to many hundreds, were obliged to remain in the vicinity, many would perish of hunger.
In the structure of the feet of this bird, we may detect a cause for its departing from the habits of its nearest allies, the Megapodii and Talegalli, which heap up earth, leaves, stones, and sticks into a huge mound, in which they bury their eggs. The feet of the Maleo are not nearly so large or strong in proportion as in these birds, while its claws are short and straight instead of being long and much curved. The toes are, however, strongly webbed at the base, forming a broad powerful foot, which, with the rather long leg, is well adapted to scratch away the loose sand (which flies up in a perfect shower when the birds are at work), but which could not without much labour acc.u.mulate the heaps of miscellaneous rubbish, which the large grasping feet of the Megapodius bring together with ease.
We may also, I think, see in the peculiar organization of the entire family of the Megapodidae or Brush Turkeys, a reason why they depart so widely from the usual habits of the Cla.s.s of birds. Each egg being so large as entirely to fill up the abdominal cavity and with difficulty pa.s.s the walls of the pelvis, a considerable interval is required before the successive eggs can be matured (the natives say about thirteen days). Each bird lays six or eight eggs or even more each season, so that between the first and last there may be an interval of two or three months. Now, if these eggs were hatched in the ordinary way, either the parents must keep sitting continually for this long period, or if they only began to sit after the last egg was deposited, the first would be exposed to injury by the climate, or to destruction by the large lizards, snakes, or other animals which abound in the district; because such large birds must roam about a good deal in search of food. Here then we seem to have a case in which the habits of a bird may be directly traced to its exceptional organization; for it will hardly be maintained that this abnormal structure and peculiar food were given to the Megapodidae in order that they might not exhibit that parental affection, or possess those domestic instincts so general in the Cla.s.s of birds, and which so much excite our admiration.
It has generally been the custom of writers on Natural History to take the habits and instincts of animals as fixed points, and to consider their structure and organization, as specially adapted, to be in accordance with these. This a.s.sumption is however an arbitrary one, and has the bad effect of stifling inquiry into the nature and causes of "instincts and habits," treating them as directly due to a "first cause," and therefore, incomprehensible to us. I believe that a careful consideration of the structure of a species, and of the peculiar physical and organic conditions by which it is surrounded, or has been surrounded in past ages, will often, as in this case, throw much light on the origin of its habits and instincts. These again, combined with changes in external conditions, react upon structure, and by means of "variation" and "natural selection", both are kept in harmony.
My friends remained three days, and got plenty of wild pigs and two Anoas, but the latter were much injured by the dogs, and I could only preserve the heads. A grand hunt which we attempted on the third day failed, owing to bad management in driving in the game, and we waited for five hours perched on platforms in trees without getting a shot, although we had been a.s.sured that pigs, Babirusas, and Anoas would rush past us in dozens. I myself, with two men, stayed three days longer to get more specimens of the Maleos, and succeeded in preserving twenty-six very fine ones--the flesh and eggs of which supplied us with abundance of good food.
The Major sent a boat, as he had promised, to take home my baggage, while I walked through the forest with my two boys and a guide, about fourteen miles. For the first half of the distance there was no path, and we had often to cut our way through tangled rattans or thickets of bamboo. In some of our turnings to find the most practicable route, I expressed my fear that we were losing our way, as the sun being vertical, I could see no possible clue to the right direction. My conductors, however, laughed at the idea, which they seemed to consider quite ludicrous; and sure enough, about half way, we suddenly encountered a little hut where people from Licoupang came to hunt and smoke wild pigs. My guide told me he had never before traversed the forest between these two points; and this is what is considered by some travellers as one of the savage "instincts," whereas it is merely the result of wide general knowledge. The man knew the topography of the whole district; the slope of the land, the direction of the streams, the belts of bamboo or rattan, and many other indications of locality and direction; and he was thus enabled to hit straight upon the hut, in the vicinity of which he had often hunted. In a forest of which he knew nothing, he would be quite as much at a loss as a European. Thus it is, I am convinced, with all the wonderful accounts of Indians finding their way through trackless forests to definite points; they may never have pa.s.sed straight between the two particular points before, but they are well acquainted with the vicinity of both, and have such a general knowledge of the whole country, its water system, its soil and its vegetation, that as they approach the point they are to reach, many easily-recognised indications enable them to hit upon it with certainty.
The chief feature of this forest was the abundance of rattan palms hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting about on the ground, often in inextricable confusion. One wonders at first how they can get into such queer shapes; but it is evidently caused by the decay and fall of the trees up which they have first climbed, after which they grow along the ground until they meet with another trunk up which to ascend.
A tangled ma.s.s of twisted living rattan, is therefore, a sign that at some former period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not the slightest vestige of it left. The rattan seems to have unlimited powers of growth, and a single plant may mount up several trees in succession, and thus reach the enormous length they are said sometimes to attain. They much improve the appearance of a forest as seen from the coast; for they vary the otherwise monotonous tree-tops with feathery crowns of leaves rising clear above them, and each terminated by an erect leafy spike like a lightning-conductor.
The other most interesting object in the forest was a beautiful palm, whose perfectly smooth and cylindrical stem rises erect to more than a hundred feet high, with a thickness of only eight or ten inches; while the fan-shaped leaves which compose its crown, are almost complete circles of six or eight feet diameter, borne aloft on long and slender petioles, and beautifully toothed round the edge by the extremities of the leaflets, which are separated only for a few inches from the circ.u.mference. It is probably the Livistona rotundifolia of botanists, and is the most complete and beautiful fan-leaf I have ever seen, serving admirably for folding into water-buckets and impromptu baskets, as well as for thatching and other purposes.
A few days afterwards I returned to Menado on horse-back, sending my baggage around by sea; and had just time to pack up all my collections to go by the next mail steamer to Amboyna. I will now devote a few pages to an account of the chief peculiarities of the Zoology of Celebes, and its relation to that of the surrounding countries.
CHAPTER XVIII. NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES.
THE position of Celebes is the most central in the Archipelago.
Immediately to the north are the Philippine islands; on the west is Borneo; on the east are the Molucca islands; and on the south is the Timor group--and it is on all sides so connected with these islands by its own satellites, by small islets, and by coral reefs, that neither by inspection on the map nor by actual observation around its coast, is it possible to determine accurately which should be grouped with it, and which with the surrounding districts. Such being the case, we should naturally expect to find that the productions of this central island in some degree represented the richness and variety of the whole Archipelago, while we should not expect much individuality in a country, so situated, that it would seem as if it were pre-eminently fitted to receive stragglers and immigrants from all around.
As so often happens in nature, however, the fact turns out to be just the reverse of what we should have expected; and an examination of its animal productions shows Celebes to be at once the poorest in the number of its species, and the most isolated in the character of its productions, of all the great islands in the Archipelago. With its attendant islets it spreads over an extent of sea hardly inferior in length and breadth to that occupied by Borneo, while its actual land area is nearly double that of Java; yet its Mammalia and terrestrial birds number scarcely more than half the species found in the last-named island. Its position is such that it could receive immigrants from every side more readily than Java, yet in proportion to the species which inhabit it, far fewer seem derived from other islands, while far more are altogether peculiar to it; and a considerable number of its animal forms are so remarkable, as to find no close allies in any other part of the world. I now propose to examine the best known groups of Celebesian animals in some detail, to study their relations to those of other islands, and to call attention to the many points of interest which they suggest.
We know far more of the birds of Celebes than we do of any other group of animals. No less than 191 species have been discovered, and though no doubt, many more wading and swimming birds have to be added; yet the list of land birds, 144 in number, and which for our present purpose are much the most important, must be very nearly complete. I myself a.s.siduously collected birds in Celebes for nearly ten months, and my a.s.sistant, Mr. Allen, spent two months in the Sula islands. The Dutch naturalist Forsten spent two years in Northern Celebes (twenty years before my visit), and collections of birds had also been sent to Holland from Maca.s.sar. The French ship of discovery, L"Astrolabe, also touched at Menado and procured collections. Since my return home, the Dutch naturalists Rosenberg and Bernstein have made extensive collections both in North Celebes and in the Sula islands; yet all their researches combined have only added eight species of land birds to those forming part of my own collection--a fact which renders it almost certain that there are very few more to discover.
Besides Salayer and Boutong on the south, with Peling and Bungay on the east, the three islands of the Sula (or Zula) Archipelago also belong zoologically to Celebes, although their position is such that it would seem more natural to group them with the Moluccas. About 48 land birds are now known from the Sula group, and if we reject from these, five species which have a wide range over the Archipelago, the remainder are much more characteristic of Celebes than of the Moluccas. Thirty-one species are identical with those of the former island, and four are representatives of Celebes forms, while only eleven are Moluccan species, and two more representatives.
But although the Sula islands belong to Celebes, they are so close to Bouru and the southern islands of the Gilolo group, that several purely Moluccan forms have migrated there, which are quite unknown to the island of Celebes itself; the whole thirteen Moluccan species being in this category, thus adding to the productions of Celebes a foreign element which does not really belong to it. In studying the peculiarities of the Celebesian fauna, it will therefore be well to consider only the productions of the main island.
The number of land birds in the island of Celebes is 128, and from these we may, as before, strike out a small number of species which roam over the whole Archipelago (often from India to the Pacific), and which therefore only serve to disguise the peculiarities of individual islands. These are 20 in number, and leave 108 species which we may consider as more especially characteristic of the island. On accurately comparing these with the birds of all the surrounding countries, we find that only nine extend into the islands westward, and nineteen into the islands eastward, while no less than 80 are entirely confined to the Celebesian fauna--a degree of individuality which, considering the situation of the island, is hardly to be equalled in any other part of the world. If we still more closely examine these 80 species, we shall be struck by the many peculiarities of structure they present, and by the curious affinities with distant parts of the world which many of them seem to indicate. These points are of so much interest and importance that it will be necessary to pa.s.s in review all those species which are peculiar to the island, and to call attention to whatever is most worthy of remark.
Six species of the Hawk tribe are peculiar to Celebes; three of these are very distinct from allied birds which range over all India to Java and Borneo, and which thus seem to be suddenly changed on entering Celebes. Another (Accipiter trinotatus) is a beautiful hawk, with elegant rows of large round white spots on the tail, rendering it very conspicuous and quite different from any other known bird of the family.
Three owls are also peculiar; and one, a barn owl (Strix rosenbergii), is very much larger and stronger than its ally Strix javanica, which ranges from India through all the islands as far as Lombock.
Of the ten Parrots found in Celebes, eight are peculiar. Among them are two species of the singular racquet-tailed parrots forming the genus Prioniturus, and which are characterised by possessing two long spoon-shaped feathers in the tail. Two allied species are found in the adjacent island of Mindanao, one of the Philippines, and this form of tail is found in no other parrots in the whole world. A small species of Lorikeet (Trichoglossus flavoviridis) seems to have its nearest ally in Australia.
The three Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs which inhabit the island are all peculiar, and are allied to species found in Java and Borneo, although very different from them all.
Among the three peculiar Cuckoos, two are very remarkable. Phoenicophaus callirhynchus is the largest and handsomest species of its genus, and is distinguished by the three colours of its beak, bright yellow, red, and black. Eudynamis melanorynchus differs from all its allies in having a jet-black bill, whereas the other species of the genus always have it green, yellow, or reddish.
The Celebes Roller (Coracias temmincki) is an interesting example of one species of a genus being cut off from the rest. There are species of Coracias in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but none in the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, or Borneo. The present species seems therefore quite out of place; and what is still more curious is the fact that it is not at all like any of the Asiatic species, but seems more to resemble those of Africa.