[The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russell Wallace]@TWC D-Link bookThe Malay Archipelago CHAPTER XXVII 2/20
The bats or aerial mammals, on the other hand, are numerous--not less than twenty-five species being already known.
But even this exceeding poverty of terrestrial mammals does not at all represent the real poverty of the Moluccas in this class of animals; for, as we shall soon see, there is good reason to believe that several of the species have been introduced by man, either purposely or by accident. The only quadrumanous animal in the group is the curious baboon-monkey, Cynopithecus nigrescens, already described as being one of the characteristic animals of Celebes.
This is found only in the island of Batchian; and it seems so much out of place there as it is difficult to imagine how it could have reached the island by any natural means of dispersal, and yet not have passed by the same means over the narrow strait to Gilolo--that it seems more likely to have originated from some individuals which had escaped from confinement, these and similar animals being often kept as pets by the Malays, and carried about in their praus. Of all the carnivorous animals of the Archipelago the only one found in the Moluccas is the Viverra tangalunga, which inhabits both Batchian and Bouru, and probably come of the other islands.
I am inclined to think that this also may have been introduced accidentally, for it is often made captive by the Malays, who procure civet from it, and it is an animal very restless and untameable, and therefore likely to escape. This view is rendered still more probable by what Antonio de Morga tells us was the custom in the Philippines in 1602.
He says that "the natives of Mindanao carry about civet-cats in cages, and sell them in the islands; and they take the civet from them, and let them go again." The same species is common in the Philippines and in all the large islands of the Indo-Malay region. The only Moluccan ruminant is a deer, which was once supposed to be a distinct species, but is now generally considered to be a slight variety of the Rusa hippelaphus of Java.
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