facts teach us, that though the birds of this group have
evidently been derived mainly from New Guinea, yet the immigration has
not been a recent one, since there has been time for the greater portion
of the species to have become changed. We find, also, that many very
characteristic New Guinea forms lave not entered the Moluccas at all,
while others found in Ceram and Gilolo do not extend so far west as
Bouru. Considering, further, the absence of most of the New Guinea
mammals from the Moluccas, we are led to the conclusion that these
islands are not fragments which have been separated from New Guinea, but
form a distinct insular region, which has been upheaved independently at
a rather remote epoch, and during all the mutations it has undergone
has been constantly receiving immigrants from that great and productive
island. The considerable length of time the Moluccas 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 Ke; and
that of Gilolo, including Morty, Batchian, Obi, Ternate, and other small
islands. These divisions have each a considerable number of peculiar
species, no less than fifty-five being found in the Ceram group only;
and besides 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; Ke 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, belonging 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 species being known, including twelve of the
beautiful green fruit pigeons, the smaller kinds of which are
ornamented with the most brillia