FAUNA OF INDONESIA. 75 



At the same time the explorations already made suffice to give some idea of the 

 teeming animal life in the western parts of the archipelago. During six years of 

 research, Wallace' alone collected over a hundred and twenty-five thousand zoolo- 

 gical specimens. The Indonesian mammals comprise over one hundred and seventy 

 species, amongst which twenty- four belong to the ape family. In Sumatra and 

 Borneo occur two species 'of the orang-utan, that "wild man" who has been so 

 often described, and who, by his intelligence and moral qualities seems to approach 

 nearest to civilised man. The si-amang, nearly as tall as the orang-utan, has his 

 home in Sumatra ; while all the western islands have their long-armed gibbons 

 and long- mouthed lemuroids. 



Sumatra and Borneo are still the refuge of a species of elephant, apparently in 

 no way differing from the Indian variety, as well as of a tapir, which is also met 

 on the adjacent mainland. Both islands have their rhinoceroses, and Borneo and 

 Java their wild cattle resembling those of Siam and Burmah. The Sunda group 

 has no less than thirty- three species of carnivora, amongst which are the royal tiger 

 and the almost equally formidable leopard. There are also as many as fifty different 

 kinds of the bat family, and a great number of rodents, the squirrels alone being 

 rej)resented by twenty-five species, nearly all distinct from those of the mainland, 

 but outwardh' not unlike the tupaïas, or insectivora, of which about ten varieties 

 have been observed, mostly peculiar to the archipelago. 



Besides those recently introduced by man, there are about three hundred and 

 fifty species of birds, some of which, notably the parrakeets, are distinguished by 

 their gorgeous plumage. The ophidians and other reptiles, somewhat rare in most 

 oceanic lands, are, on the contiary, very numerous in Indonesia, where the estu- 

 aries are infested by crocodiles, and the forests inhabited by pythons over thirty 

 feet long, and by the much-dreaded spectacled snake. Hundreds of species of 

 fishes swarm in all the rivers, while thousands and thousands of the insect order 

 have already been collected and classified in the European museums. Such is the 

 multitude of the butterflies, that Wallace speaks of them as forming a characteristic 

 feature of the insular scenery. The "ornithoptera," which, thanks to their size, 

 majestic flight, and brilliant colours, make a greater show than most birds, are met 

 in swarms about the verge of the forests and cultivated lands. A morning stroll 

 in the more fertile districts of Malaysia is almost sure to reveal three or four, and 

 often as many as eight species of papUio, of which naturalists have already 

 enumerated about one hundred and thirty kinds. Borneo alone possesses thirty, 

 the largest number yet found in anj^ single island. The diversity of these species, 

 however, diminishes gradually going eastwards, while their size increases in the 

 same direction. 



Such is the poverty of the fauna as we approach the Australian continent, that 

 Timor offers no more than seven species of land mammals apart from fifteen kinds 

 of bats. Passing from Borneo to Celebes, the naturalist is less struck by the 

 reduced number of species than by their new forms. Celebes, having been longer 

 isolated than the neighbouring lands, presents greater originality in the aspect of 

 its fauna. Lying about the parting-line between the Sundanese and Australian 



