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Updated: June 12, 2025
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.
The species found in Lombock is about the size of a small hen, and entirely of dark olive and brown tints. It is a miscellaneous feeder, devouring fallen fruits, earthworms, snails, and centipedes, but the flesh is white and well-flavoured when properly cooked. The large green pigeons were still better eating, and were much more plentiful.
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 afterwards met with them frequently, and have once or twice come upon the birds engaged in making them. They run a few steps backwards, grasping a quantity of loose material in one foot, and throw it a long way behind them.
If only a portion of these floating opinions should be true, and the truth can only be tested by inquiry, we may fairly look for the descendants of the Hindoo dynasty as well as an aboriginal people. It never seems to have occurred to any one to compare the Dyaks with the people of Bali and Lombock. We know indeed but little of the former; but both races are fair, good-looking, and gentle.
The mail steamer did not arrive for a week, and I occupied myself in getting as many of the birds as I could, and found some which were very interesting. The Tropidorhynchus timorensis was as ubiquitous and as noisy as I had found it at Lombock; and the Sphaecothera viridis, a curious green oriole with bare red orbits, was a great acquisition.
There is also a difference in physical geography; but this occurs at the eastern termination of the chain where the volcanoes which are the marked feature of Java, Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, and Flores, turn northwards through Gunong Api to Banda, leaving Timor with only one volcanic peak near its centre, while the main portion of the island consists of old sedimentary rocks.
To this, however, there is one important exception in the island of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which there is absolutely no forest such as exists in the other islands, and this character extends in a lesser degree to Flores, Sumbawa, Lombock, and Bali.
The Dutch naturalist Zollinger, who resided a long time on the island of Bali, informs us that its productions completely assimilate with those of Java, and that he is not aware of a single animal found in it which does not inhabit the larger island. During the few days which I stayed on the north coast of Bali on my way to Lombock, I saw several birds highly characteristic of Javan ornithology.
There are strong reasons for believing that the Hindoo religion, which obtained so extensively in Java and Sumatra, and yet survives at Bali and Lombock, was likewise extended to Borneo; and some authors have conceived grounds for supposing a religion anterior even to this.
We shall show this in a yet more striking manner by counting the number of species identical with those of Java and Australia respectively in each island, thus: In Lombock. In Flores. In Timor. Javan birds... . 33 23 11 Australian birds.. 4 5 10 Here we see plainly the course of the migration which has been going on for hundreds or thousands of years, and is still going on at the present day.
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