the first group Borneo is a typical representative; and from its
proximity and the extent of its opposing coasts it is the island which we
should expect to show most resemblance to Celebes. We have already seen
that the fauna of Borneo is essentially the same as that of Southern Asia,
and that it is excessively rich in all the Malayan types of {454} mammalia
and birds. Java and Bali closely resemble Borneo in general character,
though somewhat less rich and with several peculiar forms; while the
Philippine Islands, though very much poorer, and with a greater amount of
speciality, yet exhibit essentially the same character. These islands,
taken as a whole, may be described as having a fauna almost identical with
that of Southern Asia; for no family of mammalia is found in the one which
is absent from the other, and the same may be said, with very few and
unimportant exceptions, of the birds; while hundreds of genera and of
species are common to both.

In the islands east and south of Celebes--the Moluccas, New Guinea, and the
Timor group from Lombok eastward--we find, on the other hand, the most
wonderful contrast in the forms of life. Of twenty-seven families of
terrestrial mammals found in the great Malay islands, all have disappeared
but four, and of these it is doubtful whether two have not been introduced
by man. We also find here four families of Marsupials, all totally unknown
in the western islands. Even birds, though usually more widely spread, show
a corresponding difference, about eleven Malayan families being quite
unknown east of Celebes, where six new families make their appearance which
are equally unknown to the westward.[115]

We have here a radical difference between two sets of islands not very far
removed from each other, the one set belonging zoologically to Asia, the
other to Australia. The Asiatic or Malayan group is found to be bounded
strictly by the eastward limits of the great bank (for the most part less
than fifty fathoms below the surface) which {455} stretches out from the
Siamese and Malayan peninsula as far as Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and the
Philippines. To the east another bank unites New Guinea and the Papuan
Islands as far as Aru, Mysol, and Waigiou, with Australia; while the
Moluccas and Timor groups are surrounded by much deeper water, which forms,
in the Banda and Celebes Seas and perhaps in other parts of this area,
great basins of enormous depths (2,000 to 3,000 fathoms or even more