18 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap. i. 



them will, in time, make a sea, if one does not already 

 exist. 



But it is when we examine the zoology of these countries 

 that we find what we most require — evidence of a very 

 striking character that these great islands must have once 

 formed a part of the continent, and could only have been 

 separated at a very recent geological epoch. The elephant 

 and tapir of Sumatra and Borneo, the rhinoceros of 

 Sumatra and the allied species of Java, the wild cattle 

 of Borneo and the kind long supposed to be peculiar to 

 Java, are now all known to inhabit some part or other 

 of Southern Asia. None of these large animals could 

 possibly have passed over the arms of the sea which now 

 separate these countries, and their presence plainly indi- 

 cates that a land communication must have existed since 

 the origin of the species. Among the smaller mammals 

 a considerable portion are common to each island and the 

 continent ; but the vast physical changes that must have 

 occurred during the breaking up and subsidence of such 

 extensive regions have led to the extinction of some in 

 one or more of the islands, and in some cases there seems 

 also to have been time for a change of species to have 

 taken place. Birds and insects illustrate the same view, 

 for every family, and almost every genus of these 

 groups found in any of the islands, occurs also on the 

 Asiatic continent, and in a great number of cases the 



