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I term these respectively the Indo-Malayan and the Austro-Malayan divisions of the Archipelago. On referring to pages 12, 13, and 36 of Mr. Earl's pamphlet, it will be seen that he maintains the former connection of Asia and Australia as an important part of his view; whereas, I dwell mainly on their long continued separation.
However various may be the effects of climate, however unequal the means of distribution; these will never altogether obliterate the radical effects of long-continued isolation; and it is my firm conviction, that when the botany and the entomology of New Guinea and the surrounding islands become as well known as are their mammals and birds, these departments of nature will also plainly indicate the radical distinctions of the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan regions of the great Malay Archipelago.
The common monkey, Macacus cynomolgus, which is found in all the Indo-Malayan islands, and has spread from Java through Bali and Lombock to Timor. This species is very frequent on the banks of rivers, and may have been conveyed from island to island on trees carried down by hoods. 2. Paradoxurus fasciatus; a civet cat, very common over a large part of the Archipelago. 3.
This line will separate the Malayan and all the Asiatic races, from the Papuans and all that inhabit the Pacific; and though along the line of junction intermigration and commixture have taken place, yet the division is on the whole almost as well defined and strongly contrasted, as is the corresponding zoological division of the Archipelago, into an Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan region.
For example, among the commonest birds in Lombock were white cockatoos and three species of Meliphagidae or honeysuckers, belonging to family groups which are entirely absent from the western or Indo-Malayan region of the Archipelago.
In fact, to this day a belt of very deep sea, known as Wallace's Line, from the great naturalist who first pointed out its far-reaching zoological importance, separates what is called by science 'the Australian province' on the southwest from 'the Indo-Malayan province' to the north and east of it.
They are the smallest of ungulates, and inhabit only portions of the Indo-Malayan region. Camels also have upper canines, and the outer, upper incisors as well. The giraffe is separated from all living ungulates by the primitive character of its so-called "horns," which are not horns in the usual sense, but simply bony prominences of the skull covered with hair.
If, however, I am right in my supposition that the region where the dividing line of the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan regions of zoology can now be drawn, was formerly occupied by a much wider sea than at present, and if man existed on the earth at that period, we shall see good reason why the races inhabiting the Asiatic and Pacific areas should now meet and partially intermingle in the vicinity of that dividing line.
These, the true oxen, as they are sometimes termed, now exist only in domesticated breeds of cattle. The three species gaur, gayal and banteng inhabit Indo-Malayan countries, and all of them are dark brown with white stockings. In old bulls of the African species the horns meet at their base and completely cover the forehead. In the arni of India they are enormously long.
Wallace gives the name Indo-Malayan, are Malays; those of the latter, the Austro-Malayan, are Papuans.
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