Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
have remained isolated is further indicated by the occurrence of two peculiar genera of
birds, Semioptera and Lycocorax, which are found nowhere else.
We are able to divide this small archipelago into two well-marked groups—that of Ceram,
including also Bouru, Amboyna, Banda, and Ké; and that of Gilolo, including Morty, Bat-
chian, Obi, Ternate, and other small islands. These divisions have each a considerable num-
ber of peculiar species, no less than fifty-five being found in the Ceram group only; and be-
sides this, most of the separate islands have some species peculiar to themselves. Thus
Morty island has a peculiar kingfisher, honeysucker, and starling; Ternate has a ground-
thrush (Pitta) and a flycatcher; Banda has a pigeon, a shrike, and a Pitta; Ké has two
flycatchers, a Zosterops, a shrike, a king-crow, and a cuckoo; and the remote Timor-laut,
which should probably come into the Moluccan group, has a cockatoo and lory as its only
known birds, and both are of peculiar species.
The Moluccas are especially rich in the parrot tribe, no less than twenty-two species, be-
longing to ten genera, inhabiting them. Among these is the large red-crested cockatoo, so
commonly seen alive in Europe, two handsome red parrots of the genus Eclectus, and five
of the beautiful crimson lories, which are almost exclusively confined to these islands and
the New Guinea group. The pigeons are hardly less abundant or beautiful, twenty-one spe-
cies being known, including twelve of the beautiful green fruit pigeons, the smaller kinds of
which are ornamented with the most brilliant patches of colour on the head and the under-
surface. Next to these come the kingfishers, including sixteen species, almost all of which
are beautiful, and many are among the most brilliantly-coloured birds that exist.
One of the most curious groups of birds, the Megapodii, or mound-makers, is very abund-
ant in the Moluccas. They are gallinaceous birds, about the size of a small fowl, and gener-
ally of a dark ashy or sooty colour, and they have remarkably large and strong feet and long
claws. They are allied to the 'Maleo' of Celebes, of which an account has already been giv-
en, but they differ in habits, most of these birds frequenting the scrubby jungles along the
sea-shore, where the soil is sandy, and there is a considerable quantity of
débris
, consisting
of sticks, shells, seaweed, leaves, &c. Of this rubbish the Megapodius forms immense
mounds, often six or eight feet high and twenty or thirty feet in diameter, which they are en-
abled to do with comparative ease by means of their large feet, with which they can grasp
and throw backwards a quantity of material. In the centre of this mound, at a depth of two or
three feet, the eggs are deposited, and are hatched by the gentle heat produced by the fer-
mentation of the vegetable matter of the mound. When I first saw these mounds in the island
of Lombock, I could hardly believe that they were made by such small birds, but I after-
wards met with them frequently, and have once or twice come upon the birds engaged in
