GEOGRAPHY OF BORNEO 7 



species of birds, many of them being of gorgeous 

 colouring or strange and beautiful forms ; especially- 

 noteworthy are many hawks, owls, and eagles, fly- 

 catchers, spider-hunters, sun-birds, broad-bills, night- 

 jars, orioles, miners, pigeons, kingfishers, hornbills, 

 trojans, magpies, jays, crows, partridges, pheasants, 

 herons, bitterns, snipes, plovers, curlews, and sand- 

 pipers. Amongst these are many species peculiar 

 to Borneo ; while on the mountains above the 

 4000- feet level are found several species which 

 outside Borneo are known only in the Himalayas. 



Besides the mammals mentioned above, Borneo 

 claims several species of mammal peculiar to itself, 

 notably the long-nosed monkey [Nasa/is larvatus) ; 

 two species of ape [Semnopitkecus Hosei and S. 

 cruciger) ; many shrews and squirrels, including 

 several flying species ; a civet-cat i^Hemigale Hosei) ; 

 a deer (Cervus Brookii)) the bearded pig {Sus 

 barbatus) ; the curious feather-tailed shrew [Ptylo- 

 cercus Lowii). 



Reptiles are well represented by the crocodile, 

 which abounds in all the rivers, a long-snouted 

 gavial, numerous tortoises and lizards with several 

 flying species, and more than seventy species of 

 snakes, of which some are poisonous, while the 

 biggest, the python, attains a length of thirty feet. 

 The rivers abound in edible fish of many species ; 

 insects are of course numerous and varied, and, aided 

 by the multitude of frogs, they fill the island each 

 evening at sunset with one vast chorus of sound. 



