MAMMALS 41 



settled. The loss of the tail may be related to the 

 very remarkable thinness and delicacy of the skin of 

 the body. In dead specimens the skin tears almost as 

 easily as tissue paper, and it is not easy to prepare good 

 museum specimens. The Trichys lives in burrows, and 

 is largely a nocturnal animal. 



The Ungulata are but poorly represented in Borneo 

 and the noblest of them all, the Elephant, occurs in 

 British North Borneo only, and there in very small 

 numbers. These are probably the descendants of a 

 small herd presented long ago to the Sultan of Brunei 

 by a Sultan of some Malay State. Tradition has it 

 that the Sultan of Brunei soon tired of his expensive 

 present, and turned all the animals adrift into the 

 jungle. That the Elephant was once truly indigenous 

 in Borneo is, however, proved by the discovery in a 

 limestone cave at Ban, in Upper Sarawak, of a semi- 

 fossilized fragment of an Elephant's molar, but it 

 must have been long since this species ceased to 

 range the Bornean jungles, for not one of the native 

 tribes have any word in their language for Elephant 

 other than the Malay name Gajah, nor is there any 

 tradition of such animals having existed in Sarawak. 



The Rhinoceros, R. sumatrensis, 1 is still extant, but 

 it seems to be confined to the mountainous regions in 

 the far interior of the island, and I do not suppose 

 that more than half a dozen specimens have been 

 sent to European museums. The horn is much prized 

 by the Chinese for medicinal purposes, but the other 

 parts of the animal, having no commercial value, are 

 not brought down by the inland natives to the bazaars 



1 Common in British North Borneo. ,1 passed four in one 

 trip. H. N. R. 



