CHAPTER IX. 



NATURAL HISTORY OP THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS. 



TN the first chapter of this work I have stated generally 

 the reasons which lead us to conclude that the large 

 islands in the western portion of the Archipelago — Java, 

 Sumatra, and Borneo — as well as the Malay peninsula and 

 the Philippine islands, have been recently separated from 

 the continent of Asia. I now propose to give a sketch of 

 the Natural History of these, which I term the Indo-Malay 

 islands, and to show how far it supports this view, and 

 how much information it is able to give us of the antiquity 

 and origin of the separate islands. 



The flora of the Archipelago is at present so imperfectly 

 known, and I have myself paid so little attention to it, 

 that I cannot draw from it many facts of importance. The 

 Malayan type of vegetation is however a very important 

 one ; and Dr. Hooker informs us, in his " Flora Indica," 

 that it spreads over all the moister and more equable parts 

 of India, and that many plants found in Ceylon, the Hima- 

 layas, the Nilghiri, and Khasia mountains are identical with 



