CHAP. XVII.] 



BOENEO AND JAVA. 



.355 



two others, Pityriasis, an extraordinary bare-headed bird 

 between a jay and a shrike, and Carpococcyx, a pheasant-like 

 ground cuckoo formerly thought to be peculiar, are said to have 

 been discovered also in Sumatra. 



The insects and land-shells of Borneo and of the surrounding 

 countries are too imperfectly known to enable us to arrive at 

 any accurate results with regard to their distribution. They 

 agree, however, with the birds and mammals in their general 

 approximation to Malayan forms, but the number of peculiar 

 species is perhaps larger. 



The proportion here shown of one-third peculiar species of 

 mammalia to about one-fifth peculiar species of land -birds, 

 teaches us that the possession of the power of flight only affects 

 the distribution of animals in a limited degree, and gives us 

 confidence in the results we may arrive at in those cases where 

 we have, from whatever cause, to depend on a knowledge of the 

 birds alone. And the difference we here find to exist is almost 

 wholly due to the wide range of certain groups of powerful flight 

 — as the birds of prey, the swallows and swifts, the king-crows, 

 and some others; while the majority of forest-birds appear to 

 remain confined, by even narrow watery barriers, to almost as 

 great an extent as do the mammalia. 



The affinities of the Bornean Fauna. — The animals of Borneo 

 exhibit an almost perfect identity in general character, and a 

 close similarity in species, with those of Sumatra and the Malay 

 Peninsula. So great is this resemblance that it is a question 

 whether it might not be quite as great were the whole united ; 

 for the extreme points of Borneo and Sumatra are 1,500 miles 

 apart — as far as from Madrid to Constantinople, or from Bombay 

 to Kangoon. In this distance we should expect to meet with 

 many local species, and even representative forms, so that we 

 hardly require a lapse of time sufficient to have produced specific 

 change. So far as the forms of life are concerned, Borneo, as an 

 island, may be no older than Great Britain ; for the time that has 

 elapsed since the glacial epoch would be amply sufficient to pro- 

 duce such a redistribution of the species, consequent on their 

 mutual relations being disturbed, as would bring the islands into 

 their present zoological condition. There are, however, other 



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