have left no geological
record. It is certainly a wonderful and unexpected fact that an accurate
knowledge of the distribution of birds and insects should enable us to
map out lands and continents which disappeared beneath the ocean long
before the earliest traditions of the human race. Wherever the geologist
can explore the earth's surface, he can read much of its past history,
and can determine approximately its latest movements above and below the
sea-level; but wherever oceans and seas now extend, he can do nothing
but speculate on the very limited data afforded by the depth of the
waters. Here the naturalist steps in, and enables him to fill up this
great gap in the past history of the earth.

One of the chief objects of my travels was to obtain evidence of this
nature; and my search after such evidence has been rewarded by great
success, so that I have been able to trace out with some probability the
past changes which one of the most interesting parts of the earth has
undergone. It may be thought that the facts and generalizations here
given would have been more appropriately placed at the end rather than
at the beginning of a narrative of the travels which supplied the facts.
In some cases this might be so, but I have found it impossible to give
such an account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous
islands and groups of islands in the Archipelago, without constant
reference to these generalizations which add so much to their interest.
Having given this general sketch of the subject, I shall be able to show
how the same principles can be applied to the individual islands of a
group, as to the whole Archipelago; and thereby make my account of the
many new and curious animals which inhabit them both, more interesting
and more instructive than if treated as mere isolated facts.

Contrasts of Races.--Before I had arrived at the conviction that the
eastern and western halves of the Archipelago belonged to distinct
primary regions of the earth, I had been led to group the natives of the
Archipelago under two radically distinct races. In this I differed from
most ethnologists who had before written on the subject; for it had
been the almost universal custom to follow William von Humboldt and
Pritchard, in classing all the Oceanic races as modifications of one
type. Observation soon showed me, however, that Malays and Papuans
differed radically in every physical, mental, and moral character; and
more detai