372 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



abound most where the soil and climatal conditions do not encourage the 

 greatest development of vegetation. Thus it is in Boi-neo, where, although the 

 countiy is a vast forest under an equatorial sun, large animals are rarely met 

 with." — (p. 216.) 



The fact, as regards Borneo, certainly is as here stated ; but we 

 cannot agree with the generaUzation as to some connexion or 

 relation exi^jpg or being to be expected between the amount of 

 vegetation and the presence or absence of larger mammals in any 

 land. The two things have nothing whatever to do with each 

 other, and the presence or absence of every kind of animal solely 

 depends upon whether the land in question at its appearance 

 above the sea was in connexion with or near to some other land 

 where such animals existed, so as to allow of its being peopled by 

 emigration or dispersal from it. The special puzzle with regard 

 to Borneo is, that while it is abundantly peopled with arboreal and 

 aquatic mammals, such as bats, monkeys, squirrels, otters, and 

 tapirs, there is an almost entire absence of animals which re- 

 quire solid ground for the sole of their foot to rest on. A semi- 

 arboreal tree cat or leopard, and a small light-footed deer is the 

 nearest approach to a truly terrestrial animal. With diese 

 exceptions, and even these^ perhaps, can scarcely be truly called 

 exceptions, there is nothing mammalian on Borneo which 

 could not live on a half-drowned land. If we suppose Borneo 

 formerly entirely flat, as the greater part of it still is, and 

 united to Java, and then sunk until it became level with the 

 sea, like some parts of New Guinea at this moment, where 

 there are groves of mangroves growing on the flat muddy 

 beaches, extending backwards for several miles into the interior, 

 before the solid land is reached, we should have a land covered 

 with timber, in which all the arboreal and semi-aquatic species 

 might live for long ages, but In which the larger animals of 

 Java, such as the elephant and rhinoceros, could not possi- 

 bly survive. The elephant no doubt now occurs in Borneo, 

 but, as is rightly said by Dr Collingwood, it is not aboriginal 

 but introduced. The date and history of the introduction 

 is perfectly well known. It was by the Sultan Of Sooloo, 

 who received some elephants as a present from our own East 

 India Company, and finding them troublesome and expensive 

 to keep, turned them loose in Borneo, where they have bred and 

 multiplied. From time to time it has been said that the rhinoceros 

 also occurs in Borneo, but no well-authenticated instance of it has 



