Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

FAUXA OF INDONESIA. 75At the same time the explorations already made suffice to give some idea of theteeming animal life in the western parts of the archipelago. During six j^ears ofresearch, Wallace alone collected over a hundred and twenty-five thousand zoologicalspecimens. The Indonesian mammals comprise over one hundred and seventyspecies, amongst which twenty- four belong to the ajje fainily. In Sumatra andBorneo occur two species of the orang-utan, that "wild man" who has been sooften described, and who, by his intelligence and moral qualities seems to approachnearest to civilised man. The si-amang, nearlj- as tall as the orang-utan, has hishome in Sumatra ; while all the western islands have their long-armed gibbonsand long- mouthed lemuroids.Sumatra and Borneo are still the refuge of a species of elephant, apparently inno way differing from the Indian variety, as well as of a tapir, which is also meton the adjacent mainland. Both islands have their rhinocoroses, and Borneo andJava their wild cattle resembling those of Siam and Burmah. The Sunda grouphas no less than thirty- three species of carnivora, amongst which are the roj'al tigerand the almost equally formidable leopard. There are also as manj' as fifty differentkinds of the bat family, and a great number of rodents, the squirrels alone beingrepresented by twenty-five species, nearly all distinct from those of the mainland,but outwardly not unlike the tupaias, or insectivora, of which about ten varietieshave been observed, mostly peculiar to the archipelago.Besides those recently introduced by man, there are about three hundred andfifty species of birds, some of which, notably the parrakeets, are distinguished bytheir gorgeous plumage. The ophidians and other reptiles, somewhat rare in mostoceanic lands, are, on the contrary, very numerous in Indonesia, where the estuariesare infested by crocodiles, and the forests inhabited by pythons over thirtyfeet long, and by the much-dreaded spectacled snake. Hundreds of species offishes swarm in all the rivers, while thousands and thousands of the insect orderhave already been collected and classified in the European museums. Such is themultitude of the butterflies, that Wallace speaks of them as forming a characteristicfeature of the insular scenery. The "oruithoptera," which, thanks to their size,majestic flight, and brilliant colours, make a greater show than most birds, are metin swarms about the verge of the forests and cultivated lands. A morning strollin the more fertile districts of Malaysia is almost sure to reveal three or four, andoften as many as eight species of papilio, of which naturalists have alreadyenumerated about one hundred and thirty kinds. Borneo alone possesses thirtj-.the largest number yet found in any single island. The diversity of these species,however, diminishes gradually going eastwards, while their size increases in thesame direction.Such is the poverty of the fauna as we approach the Australian continent, thatTimor offers no more than seven species of land mammals apart from fifteen kindsof bats. Passing from Borneo to Celebes, the naturalist is less struck by thereduced number of species than by their new forms. Celebes, having been longerisolated than the neighbouring lands, presents greater originality in the asjDcct ofits fauna. Lying about the parting-line between the Simdanoe and Australian