gardens, and are plainly but often very richly coloured.
Of these my own collection contains 16 species from
Celebes and 15 from Borneo; hut whereas no less than
14 are confined to the former island, only two are peculiar
to the latter. The Nymphalidse are a very extensive
group, of generally strong-winged and very bright-coloured
butterflies, very abundant in the tropics, and represented
in our own country by our Fritillaries, our Yanessas, and
our Purple-emperor. Some months ago I drew up a list of
the Eastern species of this group, including all the new
ones discovered by myself, and arrived at the following
comparative results:—
Species of NymphalicUe. Species peculiar to Percentage ^
each Island. of peculiar Species.
Java . . . 70 . . . . . 23 . . . . . 33
Borneo. . . 5 2 ....1 5 .............. 29
Celebes . . . 48......... 35......... 73
The Coleóptera are so extensive that few of the groups
have yet been carefully worked out. I will therefore refer
to one only, which I have myself recently studied—the
Cetoniadse or Bose-chafers,—a group of beetles which,
owing to their extreme beauty, have been much sought
after. From Java 37 species of these insects are known,
and from Celebes only 30 ; yet only 13, or 35 per cent., are
peculiar to the former island, and 19, or 63 per cent., to the
latter.
The result of these comparisons is, that although Celebes
is a single large island with only a few smaller ones
closely grouped around it, we must really consider it as
forming one of the great divisions of the Archipelago, equal
in rank and importance to the whole of the Moluccan or
Philippine groups, to the Papuan islands, or to the Indo-
Malay islands (Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and the Malay
peninsula). Taking those families of insects and birds
which are best known, the following table shows the com-
parison of Celebes with the other groups of islands :—
PAPIL IONIDÆ AND HAWKS, PARROTS, AND
P IE R IDÆ . PIGEONS.
Per cent, of peculiar Per cent, of peculiar
Speeies. Species.
Indo-Malay region . . 56 . . . . . . 54
Philippine group. . 6 6 . . . . . . 73
Celebes........ . 69 . . . . . . 60
Moluccan group . . . 52 . . . ... . 62
Timor group . . . , 42 . . . . . . 47
Papuan group . . . 64 . . . . . . 74
These large and well-known families well represent the
general character of the zoology of Celebes; and they
show that this island is really one of the most isolated
portions of the Archipelago, although situated in its very
centre.
But the insects of Celebes present us with other phenomena
more curious and more difficult to explain than their
striking individuality. The butterflies of that island are
in many, cases characterised by a peculiarity of outline,
which distinguishes them at a glance from those of any