第60章

The only sufficient cause we can imagine is the former connection of all the islands with the continent, and such a change is in perfect harmony with what we know of the earth's past history, and is rendered probable by the remarkable fact that a rise of only three hundred feet would convert the wide seas that separate them into an immense winding valley or plain about three hundred miles wide and twelve hundred long. It may, perhaps, be thought that birds which possess the power of flight in so pre-eminent a degree, would not be limited in their range by arms of the sea, and would thus afford few indications of the former union or separation of the islands they inhabit. This, however, is not the case. A very large number of birds appear to be as strictly limited by watery barriers as are quadrupeds; and as they have been so much more attentively collected, we have more complete materials to work upon, and are able to deduce from them still more definite and satisfactory results. Some groups, however, such as the aquatic birds, the waders, and the birds of prey, are great wanderers; other groups are little known except to ornithologists. I shall therefore refer chiefly to a few of the best known and most remarkable families of birds as a sample of the conclusions furnished by the entire class.

The birds of the Indo-Malay region have a close resemblance to those of India; for though a very large proportion of the species are quite distinct, there are only about fifteen peculiar genera, and not a single family group confined to the former district.

If, however, we compare the islands with the Burmese, Siamese, and Malayan countries, we shall find still less difference, and shall be convinced that all are closely united by the bond of a former union. In such well-known families as the woodpeckers, parrots, trogons, barbets, kingfishers, pigeons, and pheasants, we find some identical species spreading over all India, and as far as Java and Borneo, while a very large proportion are common to Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.

The force of these facts can only be appreciated when we come to treat the islands of the Austro-Malay region, and show how similar barriers have entirely prevented the passage of birds from one island to another, so that out of at least three hundred and fifty land birds inhabiting Java and Borneo, not more than ten have passed eastward into Celebes. Yet the Straits of Macassar are not nearly so wide as the Java sea, and at least a hundred species are common to Borneo and Java.

I will now give two examples to show how a knowledge of the distribution of animals may reveal unsuspected facts in the past history of the earth. At the eastern extremity of Sumatra, and separated from it by a strait about fifteen miles wide, is the small rocky island of Banca, celebrated for its tin mines. One of the Dutch residents there sent some collections of birds and animals to Leyden, and among them were found several species distinct from those of the adjacent coast of Sumatra. One of these was a squirrel (Sciurus bangkanus), closely allied to three other species inhabiting respectively the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo, but quite as distinct from them all as they are from each other. There were also two new ground thrushes of the genus Pitta, closely allied to, but quite distinct from, two other species inhabiting both Sumatra and Borneo, and which did not perceptibly differ in these large and widely separated islands. This is just as if the Isle of Man possessed a peculiar species of thrush and blackbird, distinct from the birds which are common to England and Ireland.

These curious facts would indicate that Banca may have existed as a distinct island even longer than Sumatra and Borneo, and there are some geological and geographical facts which render this not so improbable as it would at first seem to be. Although on the map Banca appears so close to Sumatra, this does not arise from its having been recently separated from it; for the adjacent district of Palembang is new land, being a great alluvial swamp formed by torrents from the mountains a hundred miles distant.

Banca, on the other hand, agrees with Malacca, Singapore, and the intervening island of Lingen, in being formed of granite and laterite; and these have all most likely once formed an extension of the Malay peninsula. As the rivers of Borneo and Sumatra have been for ages filling up the intervening sea, we may be sure that its depth has recently been greater, and it is very probable that those large islands were never directly connected with each other except through the Malay peninsula. At that period the same species of squirrel and Pitta may have inhabited all these countries; but when the subterranean disturbances occurred which led to the elevation of the volcanoes of Sumatra, the small island of Banca may have been separated first, and its productions being thus isolated might be gradually modified before the separation of the larger islands had been completed.

As the southern part of Sumatra extended eastward and formed the narrow straits of Banca, many birds and insects and some Mammalia would cross from one to the other, and thus produce a general similarity of productions, while a few of the older inhabitants remained, to reveal by their distinct forms, their different origin. Unless we suppose some such changes in physical geography to have occurred, the presence of peculiar species of birds and mammals in such an island as Banca is a hopeless puzzle; and Ithink I have shown that the changes required are by no means so improbable as a mere glance at the map would lead us to suppose.