in] THE MAMMALS OF BORNEO 



which manifests itself often in man in dreams, and which in dreams 

 he often realises, is not easy to explain, or to connect with physio- 

 logical phenomena depending on innervation or circulation ; but it 

 is conceivable, during the epoch in which the entire organism 

 of every living being was more easily adaptable to external condi- 

 tions, and could be modified in form according to the stimuli felt, 

 that certain organs, in animals influenced by desire or necessity to 

 leave the ground, may have been so far modified as to become adapted 

 to aerial locomotion, as a consequence of phenomena analogous in 

 their nature to those which come into play with us when we dream 

 that we are flying. 



As animals provided with organs of flight which were not origi- 

 nally destined to that manner of locomotion are relatively numerous 

 in Borneo, it must be presumed that some peculiarity in the nature 

 of the country they inhabit must have contributed towards this 

 very special kind of modification. Such a peculiarity appears to 

 me to lie in the fact that Borneo, like all countries with an analogous 

 fauna, is a densely tree-clad region, and was formerly, without 

 doubt, one unbroken primeval forest from the sea coasts to the 

 summits of its highest mountains. The only bare ground at that 

 period was the narrow wave-washed strip of its coast-line. This 

 explains how in Borneo and Malaysia generally land animals, in 

 the restricted sense of the term, could hardly prosper and multiply 

 as would those of arboreal habit. If the Malayan mammals be 

 compared, for example, with those of Africa, the difference is enor- 

 mous. In Africa most of the Mammalia are adapted to move and 

 live on extensive plains, and most of them are swift of foot. In 

 Malaysia, on the other hand, arboreal animals far outnumber the 

 others, and hence, when it comes to rapid movement, the most suit- 

 able method of attaining it is by flight. 



In illustration of the above remarks we may now glance for a 

 moment at the most important of the Bornean mammals. 



All the species of apes and monkeys inhabiting Borneo, fifteen 

 or sixteen in number, live on trees in the forest ; many, probably, 

 never come down to the ground, while others descend only occa- 

 sionally. Even the Carnivora are mostly arboreal. The tiger, the 

 biggest terrestrial carnivore of Southern Asia, is wanting, and its 

 place is taken by the peculiar tree-leopard (Felis nebulosa) — the 

 " rimau dahan " of the Malays. There are different kinds of Viver- 

 ridae and wild cats which come to the ground by night in search of 

 prey, but all retreat to the trees and remain hidden during the 

 day. 



The binturong {Arctictis binturong) is so essentially arboreal in 

 its habits that it has acquired a prehensile tail, and though the 

 " bruan," or Malayan bear (Helarctos malayanus), does occasionally 



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