BORNEO. 27 



is of great interest in that it affords the only case in herpetology of species showing 

 close relationship between Borneo and Celebes. The genus is known from two 

 species only, one on each island. This impossible condition is, of course, only 

 explicable if we consider that the species must either occur elsewhere undiscovered 

 or else have previously been of wider range and died out everywhere except 

 upon these two islands. As both Borneo and Celebes share each a considerable 

 number of species with the Philippines, it may be that upon this common ground 

 Agrophis occurs, or may have occurred, in the past. Gonyophis margaritatus 

 is known from the Malay Peninsula and Borneo only, as is also the genus Aeluro- 

 scalabotes among lizards. 



The amphibians are more unlike those which we know from the Malay Penin- 

 sula than are the reptiles. The number occurring on Borneo is very great. 

 Van Kampen in his tables gives seventy-eight species, a far greater number 

 than is known from any other island. The peculiar genera are Oreobatrachus 

 and Colpoglossus, the latter a monotypic genus of Dyscophidae, the former a 

 monotypic genus of Ranidae, confined as far as known to Mt. Kina Balu. Spec- 

 ies of Calophrynus and Nectophryne occur, both of these genera having widely 

 discontinuous distributions. It seems probable that when they are revised on 

 anatomical grounds, they will be found related, though probably perfectly 

 easily separated. It seems hardly possible for a genus to occur in Africa and 

 in the East Indies and still maintain its generic unity, when it has probably 

 slowly disappeared from the enormous region lying in between. 



Borneo resembles the rest of the Greater Sunda Islands in the absence of 

 Hylidae ; but shares with New Guinea the engystomatid genus Chaperina, the 

 species C. fusca being recorded from both Borneo and Papua, but as yet undis- 

 covered on the islands that lie between, though three other congeneric species 

 occur upon New Guinea itself. Van Kampen has published some notes of 

 interest on the probable dispersal in the past of the members of this family, and 

 especially regarding their astonishing abundance on New Guinea (c/. remarks 

 on van Kampen's papers under "New Guinea"). The presence of Cornufer 

 on Mt. Kina Balu (C. haluensis) is of interest as being a close parallel to the dis- 

 tribution of Chaperina, except that Cornufer corrugatus has been recorded from 

 the Philippines. 



Of the seventy-eight amphibians mentioned as occurring on the island, 

 thirty species, or twenty-nine per cent, are peculiar to Borneo. Before closing, 

 it may be of interest to mention the fact that Rana everetti occurs on Borneo, 

 Celebes, and the Philippines, thus having such a distribution as we might have 



