Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

INTRODUCTION
frogs, which latter I have seen turn an ahnost milky white when
exposed to full sunlight.
In all the foregoing cases, as indeed in all of which we have
hitherto any record, the specialisation of the animal, whether
of an aggressive or prophylactic character, takes the form of a
modification of colouring in conformity with its most usual surroundings
for the purpose of concealment, and the principle of the
importance of colouring thus developed is, of course, very marked
among the lower orders of creation, among the birds, snakes, and
various forms of the insect world (more especially the well-known
leaf and stick insects), with the all - important modification that
among all these latter classes the influence of an additional purpose
is observable, viz. that of colouring for sexual attraction—
feature of which no example whatever is known among the higher
animals of the Peninsula. But colour-modification is, of course, by
no means the only form of specialisation that occurs, for form-
modification, combined with that of colour, is found in a host of
Malay insects, of which the leaf-insect and stick-insect are the best
known examples ; while the shield of the many varieties of tortoise,
the scaly mail of the manis, and the lance-like quills or chevaux
de /rise of the porcupine, all afford notable examples of animals
provided with special forms of armour because they are ground
animals and have no other way of escape.
But we approach what is still far the most significant and charac-
teristic section of the fauna of the Peninsula when we consider the
immense proportion of the denizens of the jungle that have learnt to
live in trees. Among these are the bear, the leopard, and panther,
and all other representatives of the cat kind (with the sole exception
of the tiger), the bear-cat and the civet, and an uncounted army of
squirrels, apes, monkeys, snakes, and lizards. By far the most
numerous part of the sylvan population of the Peninsula is, in fact,
distinctively arboreal, and the most interesting section of these are
those bizarre creatures—half-animal, half-bird—which in the Malayan
jungles continually afford some fresh and delightful surprise. These
are the flying-foxes and fruit-bats, flying squirrels, flying lemurs, flying
lizards, flying frogs.
Some of these, of course, such as the flying-foxes, which owe
their name to the vulpine character of their head, are true bats, and
really fly, but many of them progress on the principle of the aero-
plane, by taking off from the trunk of a tree at a considerable height
from the ground, gliding downwards to the next, and then climbing
up from the point at which they alight, and repeating the glide as
before. The flying squirrels and flying lemurs, which travel by this
method, make use of a fold of skin between the fore and hind leg on
each side of the body, the membrane when tightly stretched performing
the work of a parachute. Of the large flying lemur, or " kubong,"
a