f
man, such as horses, sheep, or oxen. It has, however, what are called
marsupials: kangaroos, opossums, wombats, and the duck-billed platypus.
Instead also of the various birds which exist in other parts of the
world, it has the mound-making brush-turkeys, the cockatoos, and the
brush-tongued lories, as well as honey-suckers, to be found in no other
part of the world. These peculiarities are discovered in the other
islands I have mentioned, forming the Austro-Malayan division of the
archipelago. Looking down to the south-east of Java, we shall find the
small island of Bali. It is divided from the east part of the island of
Lombok by a narrow strait, where the water is very deep, showing, as I
have said, that the separation must have taken place at an early period
of the world's existence. Now in Bali we find woodpeckers,
fruit-thrushes, barbets, and other Asiatic birds. Crossing this narrow
strait to Lombok, the birds I have mentioned are no longer to be found;
but instead of them there are brush-turkeys, cockatoos, honey-suckers,
and other Australian birds. These birds again are not to be found in
Java or any region to the west. Crossing from Borneo to Celebes, there
is a very great difference in the animals. In Borneo, a vast number of
various species of monkeys exist, as well as wild cats, deer, otters,
civets, and squirrels. In Celebes, wild pigs are found, and scarcely
any other terrestrial mammal, besides the prehensile-tailed cuscus.

"Thus, when we pass from the western to the eastern islands, we feel
ourselves almost in a new region, so greatly do the four-footed and
feathered tribes we find in the one differ from those we have left in
the other. The Aru Islands and others in the neighbourhood agree in
many respects with New Guinea, from which vast island a shallow sea
alone separates them. Possessing this knowledge, a naturalist would
soon be able to learn whether he had landed on one of the islands of the
Asiatic or Australian portion of the archipelago, judging alone by the
animals he might discover."

Mr Hooker's lecture, of which I have only given a brief outline, was
suddenly interrupted by the voice of the captain shouting, "Up with the
helm!--square away the yards!" I flew to my station. Looking astern,
there appeared a long line of white foam, rushing forward over the
hitherto calm surface of the ocean at a rapid rate, while clouds came
rising out of the horizon, and chasing each other