MISCELLANEOUS NOTES, 



THE TIGTEK IN BORNEO. 



BY 



A. Haet Everett. 



The close general uniformity of the Fauna of Borneo with that 

 of the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra is a well known fact, and 

 the progress of research has steadily lessened such differences as 

 were, even of late years, supposed to exist. The main conclusion 

 drawn by Zoologists from this circumstance is that the island of 

 Borneo has formed, at a very recent geological epoch, an integral 

 portion, of the south-eastern extension of the Asiatic continent; 

 and that, consequently, the animals which now inhabit it immigrated 

 into its area over a continuous land-surface, and were not intro- 

 duced by those fortuitous accidents which effect the peopling of 

 all ordinary insular tracts of land. 



This being the case, it is remarkable that, whilst all the larger 

 mammals of the Peninsula — elephant, rhinoceros, tapir, wild oxen, 

 &c. — are found existing in both areas, the tiger, which is so 

 abundant in the last named district and so peculiarly fitted by its 

 restless habits to extend its range rapidly over a continuous and 

 congenial habitat, should be entirely wanting in Borneo alone of 

 the three great Sunda islands. Borneo, so far as we can see, 

 furnishes the conditions of life suitable for this animal's existence 

 in a degree no less than do the Peninsula, or Sumatra, or Java. 

 And yet, so far from the tiger itself having been observed, not even 

 a relic of it in a fossil condition has ever been recorded. 



