230 ON" THE GEOGRAPHICAL 



in no other island of Malayasia, but Sumatra and Borneo, 

 where our travellers discovered it. Java, the most beau- 

 tiful and best known of the Malayasian isles, differs from the 

 other regions of tliis grand archipelago in this, that it pro- 

 duces several animals which arc peculiar to it, whilst it wants 

 a good number of those which are common in Sumatra, in 

 Borneo, and even in the continent of Asia. We have no 

 certain proofs tliat the Elephant ever lived in Java ; the 

 Indian Tapir, the Orang-outan, the Semnopithecus nasicus, 

 the Hylobates syndactylus, the Malayan Bear, the Innuus 

 nemestrinus, and many other animals of Sumatra and 

 Borneo, do not inhabit it. No Antelopes are found there. 

 The Two-horned Eliinoceros of Sumatra is there represent- 

 ed by a one-horned and very different species, which seems 

 to have a great affinity with the Rhinoceros of continental 

 Asia. The Stag of Sumatra is there represented by a less 

 beautiful species, Cervus Russa ; the Leopard of Sumatra 

 and of Borneo, Felis macrocelis, is represented by a spe- 

 cies resembling the African Leopard, but with very small 

 spots, with a long tail, of a less size,* which appears to be 

 peculiar to Java. Exclusive of the Hylobates syndac- 

 tylus of Sumatra, each of the isles or the principal re- 

 gions of intertropical Asia, appears to sustain a single 

 species of the genus Hylobates, more or less differing from 

 each other. The Hylobates Lar of Sumatra is represent- 

 ed at Java by the Wou-Wou, Hylobates leuciscus ; and 

 this is replaced at Borneo by a race with darker tints, the 

 Hylob. concolor, or H. Harlanii. None of these species 

 ever appear to be found on the continent of India ; for the 

 Hylobates which have been brought from Siam, and some 



* I can assert that all the Leopards of Java belong to the species called 

 by M. Tf.mminck, Felus Pardus, and that the true Leopard, which is 

 distributed over a great part of Africa, fi^om Barbary to the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and which is said also to inhabit India, is never found in Java ; 

 but there exist in that isle also individuals of the Pardus, with the tail 

 much shorter than ordinary, and thus approaching nearer to the common 

 Leopard ; this is in favour of the opinion that the Leopard of Java 

 should be considered as a race or local variety of the other. This opi- 

 nion is, on the other hand, strengthened by the existence of several 

 local varieties or races of the Lion in Africa, and in x\sia, of the Leo- 

 pard of Africa, &c. 



