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but found a totally different set of species, most of which were utterly unknown not only in
Java, but also in Borneo, Sumatra, and Malacca. For example, among the commonest birds
in Lombock were white cockatoos and three species of Meliphagidæ or honeysuckers, be-
longing to family groups which are entirely absent from the western or Indo-Malayan region
of the Archipelago. On passing to Flores and Timor the distinctness from the Javanese pro-
ductions increases, and we find that these islands form a natural group, whose birds are re-
lated to those of Java and Australia, but are quite distinct from either. Besides my own col-
lections in Lombock and Timor, my assistant Mr. Allen made a good collection in Flores;
and these, with a few species obtained by the Dutch naturalists, enable us to form a very
good idea of the natural history of this group of islands, and to derive therefrom some very
interesting results.
The number of birds known from these islands up to this date, is,—63 from Lombock, 86
from Flores, and 118 from Timor; and from the whole group 188 species. With the excep-
tion of two or three species which appear to have been derived from the Moluccas, all these
birds can be traced, either directly or by close allies, to Java on the one side or to Australia
on the other; although no less than 82 of them are found nowhere out of this small group of
islands. There is not, however, a single genus peculiar to the group, or even one which is
largely represented in it by peculiar species; and this is a fact which indicates that the fauna
is strictly derivative, and that its origin does not go back beyond one of the most recent geo-
logical epochs. Of course there are a large number of species (such as most of the waders,
many of the raptorial birds, some of the kingfishers, swallows, and a few others), which
range so widely over a large part of the Archipelago, that it is impossible to trace them as
having come from any one part rather than from another. There are fifty-seven such species
in my list, and besides these there are thirty-five more which, though peculiar to the Timor
group, are yet allied to wide-ranging forms. Deducting these ninety-two species, we have
nearly a hundred birds left whose relations with those of other countries we will now con-
sider.
If we first take those species which, as far as we yet know, are absolutely confined to each
island, we find, in—
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