II. 



The Mammals of the Malay Peninsula. 



THE mammal-fauna of the Malay Peninsula is strictly a forest- 

 fauna. There is but little open country such as one sees in 

 many tropical regions, and consequently it is in the thicker parts of 

 the forests that one must wander to see the wild animals at home. 

 The jungle, however, is so dense that it is exceedingly difficult to get 

 near enough to the larger animals to watch without disturbing them ; 

 nor are there many persons who, having good opportunities for 

 observing them, will take the trouble to do so and to record their 

 observations. The consequence is that at present there are many 

 unsettled points of importance in the habits even of the bigger beasts, 

 which require the attention of those who have opportunities of 

 penetrating the jungles in pursuit of game, or in exploring or surveying 

 expeditions. Such questions are the presence or absence of the 

 Orang-utan in the Peninsula, or the number of species of wild cattle 

 and of rhinoceros. The natives often talk of the Mowas (a variant of 

 the Bornean word Mias, the real name of what Europeans call the 

 Orang-utan) as occurring in the Peninsula ; but I have never met 

 anyone who ever saw one. It is always " further away beyond the 

 hills on the horizon," and so on. Marvellous stories are told of it, 

 and it is almost reckoned as an unearthly creature. The name 

 Orang-utan, as applied to this animal, appears to be a European 

 fiction ; it merely means a man who lives in the woods or inland, as 

 opposed to one who lives on the sea-coast or river-bank, and is never 

 applied to the Mias, except by natives who have got the name from 

 the English. It would be better to drop it altogether. The Mias is 

 said to be very local in Borneo and Sumatra, though apparently 

 abundant where it occurs, so that it may still be possible that it does 

 inhabit some unexplored corner of the Malay Peninsula. This and 

 many other questions must be answered as opportunities occur, 

 when the interior of the Peninsula is opened up more fully to the 

 naturalist. 



In the following notes I propose to collect such observations as 

 seem of interest, chiefly relating to the mammals of the island of 

 Singapore, adding here and there notes on those of the Malay Penin- 

 sula which I have kept in captivity. 



Though much of the island of Singapore has been cleared for 

 cultivation, patches of jungle of considerable size remain, which are 



