The Fauna Of The Peninsula Is Most Remarkable And Abundant; Indeed,
Much Of Its Forest-Covered Interior Is Inhabited By Wild Beasts Alone,
And Gigantic Pachyderms, Looking Like Monsters Of An Earlier Age, Roam
Unmolested Over Vast Tracts Of Country.
Among this thick-skinned family
are the elephant, the one-horned rhinoceros, the Malayan tapir, and the
wild hog; the last held in abomination by the Malays, but constituting
the chief animal food of some of the wild tribes.
A small bear with a wistful face represents the Plantigrade family. The
Quadrumana are very numerous. There are nine monkeys, one, if not two
apes, and a lemur or sloth, which screens its eyes from the light.
Of the Digitigrada there are the otter or water-dog, the musang and
climbing musang, the civet cat, the royal tiger, the spotted black
tiger, in whose glossy raven-black coat the characteristic markings are
seen in certain lights; the tiger cat, the leopard, the Java cat, and
four or five others. Many of these feline animals abound.
Among the ruminants are four species of deer, two smaller than a hare,
and one as large as an elk; a wild goat similar to the Sumatran
antelope; the domestic goat, a mean little beast; the buffalo, a great,
nearly hairless, gray or pink beast, bigger than the buffalo of China
and India; a short-legged domestic ox, and two wild oxen or bisons,
which are rare.
The bat family is not numerous. The vampire flies high, in great
flocks, and is very destructive to fruit. This frugiverous bat, known
popularly as the "flying fox," is a very interesting-looking animal,
and is actually eaten by the people of Ternate. At the height of the
fruit season, thousands of these creatures cross from Sumatra to the
mainland, a distance never less than forty miles. Their strength of
wing is enormous. I saw one captured in the steamer Nevada, forty-five
miles from the Navigators, with wings measuring, when extended, nearly
five feet across. These are formed of a jet black membrane, and have a
highly polished claw at the extremity of each. The feet consist of five
polished black claws, with which the bat hangs on, head downward, to
the forest trees. His body is about twice the size of that of a very
large rat, black and furry underneath, and with red foxy fur on the
head and neck. He has a pointed face, a very black nose, and prominent
black eyes, with a remorseless expression in them. An edible bat of
vagrant habits is also found.
Ponies are imported from Sumatra, and a few horses from Australia, but
the latter do not thrive.
The domestic cat always looks as if half his tail had been taken off in
a trap. The domestic dog is the Asiatic, not the European dog, a leggy,
ugly, vagrant, uncared-for fellow, furnishing a useful simile and
little more.
Weasels, squirrels, polecats, porcupines, and other small animals exist
in numbers, and the mermaid, of the genus Halicore, connects the
inhabitants of the land and water. This Duyong, described as a
creature seven or eight feet long, with a head like that of an elephant
deprived of its proboscis, and the body and tail of a fish, frequents
the Sumatran and Malayan shores, and its flesh is held in great
estimation at the tables of sultans and rajahs. Besides these (and the
list is long enough) there are many small beasts.
The reptiles are unhappily very numerous. Crawfurd mentions forty
species of snakes, including the python and the cobra. Alligators in
great numbers infest the tidal waters of the rivers. Iguanas and
lizards of several species, marsh-frogs, and green tree-frogs abound.
The land-leeches are a great pest. Scorpions and centipedes are
abundant. There are many varieties of ants, among them a formidable-
looking black creature nearly two inches long, a large red ant, whose
bite is like a bad pinch from forceps, and which is the chief source of
formic acid, and the termes, or white ant, most destructive to timber.
The carpenter beetle is also found, an industrious insect, which
riddles the timber of any building in which he effects a lodgment, and
is as destructive as dry rot. There are bees and wasps, and hornets of
large size, and a much-dreaded insect, possibly not yet classified,
said to be peculiar to the Peninsula, which inflicts so severe a wound
as to make a strong man utter a cry of agony. But of all the pests the
mosquitoes are the worst. A resident may spend some time in the country
and know nothing from experience of scorpions, centipedes,
land-leeches, and soldier ants, but he cannot escape from the mosquito,
the curse of these well-watered tropic regions. In addition to the
night mosquito, there is a striped variety of large size, known as the
"tiger mosquito," much to be feared, for it pursues its bloodthirsty
work in the daytime.
Among the harmless insects may be mentioned the cicada, which fills the
forest with its cheery din, the green grasshopper, spiders, and flies
of several species, dragon-flies of large size and brilliant coloring,
and butterflies and moths of surpassing beauty, which delight in the
hot, moist, jungle openings, and even surpass the flowers in the glory
and variety of their hues. Among them the atlas moth is found,
measuring from eight to ten inches across its wings. The leaf insects
are also fascinating, and the fire-flies in a mangrove swamp on a
dark, still night, moving in gentle undulations, or flashing into
coruscations after brief intervals of quiescence, are inconceivably
beautiful.
The birds of the Peninsula are many and beautiful. Sun-birds rival the
flashing colors of the humming-birds in the jungle openings;
king-fishers of large size and brilliant blue plumage make the river
banks gay; shrieking paroquets with coral-colored beaks and tender
green feathers, abound in the forests; great, heavy-billed hornbills
hop cumbrously from branch to branch, rivaling in their awkward gait
the rhinoceros hornbills; the Javanese peacock, with its gorgeous tail
and neck covered with iridescent green feathers instead of blue ones,
moves majestically along the jungle tracks, together with the ocellated
pheasant, the handsome and high-couraged jungle cock, and the glorious
Argus pheasant, a bird of twilight and night, with "a hundred eyes" on
each feather of its stately tail.
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