and brackish water—the habitat of mud-hopping fish, and numbers of large, brightly-coloured shore crabs, some so blue and so white and glossy that they are called "porcelain" crabs—were often a great barrier to the early explorers on the coasts of Borneo, Celebes, and Timor, besides being a prime hiding place for the praus of the Malay pirates. In the dense forests the lianas and climbing plants are a remarkable feature in the pictures of triumphant vegetation—pictures of which my untravelled readers can gain some faint idea by ascending the winding staircase in the great Palm House at Kew Gardens and looking down on the complex assemblage of tropical trees and plants. In these Malaysian woods there are many species of wild vines, with small brightly-coloured grapes; there are exquisite wreaths of the climbing asparagus—Smilax; festoons of climbing ferns, of the various kinds of pepper that hang their clusters of aromatic seeds from tree to tree, of the ipomœas (convolvuluses), passion flowers, bignonias, jasmines, purple and scarlet loranthus (a kind of mistletoe), and many climbing peas and beans, remarkable for their delicate or brightly-coloured flowers, which often exhale a delicious scent. In the higher parts of Java, Borneo, the Philippines, and even of New Guinea there are jungles of rhododendrons with vivid crimson blossoms. It is, however, a common mistake to suppose that the entire surface of the Malay islands is covered with primeval forest. Considerable spaces have been cleared for cultivation, or after such clearing have relapsed into jungle; and this jungle is either a second growth of poor and scattered trees or more often a coarse and luxuriant grass. In the hilly interior of Dutch Borneo there are dry moors, deep in sand and sparsely covered with scrub. On the high plateaus and the mountain ranges of Flores and Timor considerable areas are open, treeless spaces, but covered instead with low-growing herbs, offering to the eye spectacles of brilliant colour when they blossom during the rainy season.

The splendid vegetation of Malaysia extends throughout New Guinea and the adjacent archipelagos, but with a diminution of species eastwards and a gradual infiltration of Australian forms, such as the Eucalyptus (a relation of the Myrtle family), the Casuarinas,[3] and the Araucaria conifers. More and more attenuated, the Malaysian flora spreads out over the tropical Pacific islands, wearing itself out finally in Hawaii, to which the sandalwood and a few other Malayan trees extend; and Pitcairn Island, where, however, the few Malayan species may have been anciently introduced by man.

The larger and more western islands of the Malay Archipelago have a fauna of beasts, birds, and reptiles, fish and insects, spiders and land crabs as remarkable as the wealth of their flora, and next to Africa the richest in the world. Here may still be seen—in Borneo—the wild Indian elephant and a two-horned rhinoceros; in Java there is a tiger and a small form of one-horned Indian rhinoceros. In Borneo exists the large red-haired ape called Orang-utan; in Java there are smaller anthropoid apes known as Gibbons. Java and Borneo both have a handsome wild ox, the Banteng, besides more or less wild long-horned Indian buffaloes. The smallest and most remarkable of all the buffaloes is the Anoa, found only on the island of Celebes, and a larger but similar short-horned buffalo is found in the Philippines. Nearly all the islands have wild swine—generally of a type near to the wild boar, but with a very long head—the parent form of the domestic pig of Polynesia. But the queer island of Celebes, and Buru, which lies to the east, possess the strangest pig in the world: the Babirusa, a type with—for pigs—a small and slender head and (in the male) tusks which grow up and out through the cheeks. In Borneo there is a large monkey with an immense drooping nose; in Celebes a creature called the Black Ape—an intermediate form between baboons, macaques, and the higher apes. The macaque monkeys—creatures with short tails and bare faces, rather like small baboons (the Gibraltar monkey is a macaque)—are very common throughout Malaysia, extending as near to New Guinea and Australia as the islands of Buru and Timor. The other monkeys belong to the Semnopithecus genus, the long-tailed sacred monkeys of India. One of these found in Borneo is a combination in colouring of black, white, and chestnut red. The more northern and western of the Malay Islands possess a few strange lemurs, a large flying creature, the colugo, allied to lemurs and bats, and the Tupaias or squirrel-tailed Insectivores. Deer, without any white spots and related to the Sambar type of India, are found in the Philippines, Borneo, Java, the eastern Sunda Islands as far as Timor, Celebes, and the Moluccas; and in the Philippines there are spotted deer like the hog deer of India. Carnivorous mammals are represented more especially by a small tiger and a leopard in Java, the Clouded tiger of Borneo (a kind of leopard), several small cats, numerous civets, a small bear, and wild dogs. Cats and civets extend their range to Timor and the Philippines, and a civet—probably brought by the Malays—is found in Celebes. The fruit-eating bats or flying foxes are very large, often attaining to 5 feet across the wings. Their range extends eastwards beyond the Solomon Islands to north-east Australia and the New Hebrides. Nearly all the Pacific islands, including New Zealand and Hawaii, have bats of their own, but they are insect-eating, and very often day-flying. In the eastern islands of Malaysia begin to appear the marsupials of Australia, but until New Guinea is reached there is only one type to be seen, the Cuscus—a kind of phalanger akin to the "Opossum" of Australia.[4] There are porcupines, squirrels, and many strange rodents of the Rat family in western Malaysia. Peculiar genera and species of rats penetrate not only to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, but also to Australia. The native rats of New Zealand and the Polynesian islands, however, have been introduced by man, chiefly for food.

The wealth in birds in Malaysia makes the naturalist's and artist's mouth water! There are no vultures, but several types of eagle—amongst them, in the Philippine Islands, a very large monkey-eating eagle with a huge, narrow beak—and some very handsomely coloured kites and hawks. Amongst the parrots are the gorgeous crimson Eclectus, the lovely Lories, and those "white parrots"—Cockatoos—which furnished so much amazement and delight to the early Italian voyagers. But the strangest looking of all the parrots are the black cockatoos, peculiar to New Guinea. The peacock reaches to Java but not to Borneo, but in Borneo and Palawan there are superb pheasants and peacock-pheasants, and most of the Malaysian islands possess wild jungle fowl. Peculiar to Malaysia and Australia are the Megapodes, a family of gallinaceous birds allied to the Curassows of America, and which hatch their eggs by depositing them in mounds of decaying vegetation. There are very large cuckoos, the size of big pheasants; but perhaps the most remarkable bird groups in their Malaysian developments are the Hornbills and the Pigeons. The Fruit Pigeons of this region transcend description in their exquisite tints of peach colour, green of several shades, crimson, purple, and maize yellow. One kind is jet-black and pale-cream colour. These fruit-eating pigeons extend their range into