Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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 com-
pare 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, pi-
geons, 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 pen-
insula.
The force of these facts can only be appreciated when we come to treat of 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 Su-
matra, 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 peculi-
ar 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 separ-
ated 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
