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ATLAS MOTH. 



CHAPTER VII 



The Fauna of the Malay Islands and the Philippines 



Although the great Malay Islands of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and Celebes, together 

 with the Philippines and the smaller islands of the Archipelago, form a part of the 

 Malay province of the Oriental region, they contain so many animals unknown 

 elsewhere that they may be accorded a chapter to themselves. Throughout the 

 great sylvan area of these islands and New Guinea, and the adjacent continental 

 portions of south-eastern Asia, the annual rainfall is very great, attaining an 

 average of about 80 inches, but rising in some places to 120, in others to 160, and 

 reaching in Buitenzorg in Java almost 200. There are indeed districts in eastern Java 

 in which the fall is considerably much less than 40 inches, and where in consequence 

 tall trees or even savannas are scarce, but, speaking generally, most of the land- 

 surface of the Malay Archipelago is clothed with primeval forests, which are types 

 of tropical luxuriance and beauty, and utterly unlike the forest-growth of Europe. 

 Amid this leafy luxuriance flourishes a rich and remarkable fauna, many of the 

 members of which are common to the mainland of the Malay province, under which 

 heading they have been already noticed, while others are peculiar to this island tract. 



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