Island Life; Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and FlorasWallace, Alfred Russel
Science
Island Life; Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Biogeography; Glacial epoch; Island ecology
Anomalous Relations of Celebes--Physical Features of the
Island--Zoological Character of the Islands Around Celebes--The Malayan
and Australian Banks--Zoology of Celebes: Mammalia--Probable Derivation
of the Mammals of Celebes--Birds of Celebes--Bird-types Peculiar to
Celebes--Celebes not Strictly a Continental Island--Peculiarities of
the Insects of Celebes--Himalayan Types of Birds and Butterflies in
Celebes--Peculiarities of Shape and Colour of Celebesian
Butterflies--Concluding Remarks--Appendix on the Birds of Celebes.
The only other islands of the globe which can be classed as "ancient
continental" are the larger Antilles (Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and Porto
Rico), Iceland, and perhaps Celebes. The Antilles have been so fully
discussed and illustrated in my former work, and there is so little fresh
information about them, that I do not propose to treat of them here,
especially as they fall short of Madagascar in all points of biological
interest, and offer no problems of a different character from such as have
already been sufficiently explained.
Iceland, also, must apparently be classed as belonging to the "Ancient
Continental Islands," for though usually described as wholly volcanic, it
is, more probably, an island of varied geological structure buried under
the lavas of its numerous volcanoes. But of late years extensive Tertiary
deposits of Miocene age have been discovered, showing that it is not a mere
congeries of {451} volcanoes; it is connected with the British Islands and
with Greenland by seas less than 500 fathoms deep; and it possesses a few
mammalia, one of which is peculiar, and at least three peculiar species of
birds. It was therefore almost certainly united with Greenland, and
probably with Europe by way of Britain, in the early part of the Tertiary
period, and thus afforded one of the routes by which that intermigration of
American and European animals and plants was effected which we know
occurred during some portion of the Eocene and Miocene periods, and
probably also in the Pliocene. The fauna and flora of this island are,
however, so poor, and offer so few peculiarities, that it is unnecessary to
devote more time to their consideration.
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