In this he showed that the island was originally one of the
Moluccan group, as every bird found there which was not widely
distributed was either identical with or closely allied to Moluccan
species, while none had special affinities with Celebes. It was clear,
then, that this island formed the most westerly outlier of the Moluccan
group.
The next paper of importance, read before the same Society in November
(1863), was on the birds of the chain of islands extending from Lombok
to the great island of Timor. This included a list of 186 species of
birds, of which twenty-nine were altogether new. A special feature of
the paper was that it enabled him to mark out precisely the boundary
line between the Indian and Australian zoological regions, and to trace
the derivation of the rather peculiar fauna of these islands, partly
from Australia and partly from the Moluccas, but with a strong recent
migration of Javanese species due to the very narrow straits separating
most of the islands from each other. In "My Life" some interesting
tables are given to illustrate how the two streams of immigration
entered these islands, and further that "as its geological structure
shows ... Timor is the older island and received immigrants from
Australia at a period when, probably, Lombok and Flores had not come
into existence or were unhabitable.... We can," he says, "feel confident
that Timor has not been connected with Australia, because it has none of
the peculiar Australian mammalia, and also because many of the commonest
and most widespread groups of Australian birds are entirely wanting.
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