_General Character of the Fauna of Java._--If we were only to take account of the number of peculiar species in Java, and the relations of its fauna generally to that of the surrounding lands, we might pass it over as a less interesting island than Borneo or Sumatra. Its mammalia (ninety species) are nearly as numerous as those of Borneo, but are apparently less peculiar, none of the genera and only five or six of the species being confined to the island. In land-birds it is decidedly less rich, having only 300 species, of which about forty-five are peculiar, and only one {383} or two belong to peculiar genera; so that here again the amount of speciality is considerably less than in Borneo. It is only when we proceed to analyse the species of the Javan fauna, and trace their distribution and affinities, that we discover its interesting nature. _Difference Between the Fauna of Java and that of the other great Malay Islands._--Comparing the fauna of Java with that which may be called the typical Malayan fauna as exhibited in Borneo, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula, we find the following differences. No less than thirteen genera of mammalia, each of which is known to inhabit at least two, and generally all three, of the above-named Malayan countries, are totally absent from Java; and they include such important forms as the elephant, the tapir, and the Malay bear. It cannot be said that this difference depends on imperfect knowledge, for Java is one of the oldest European settlements in the East, and has been explored by a long succession of Dutch and English naturalists. Every part of it is thoroughly well known, and it would be almost as difficult to find a new mammal of any size in Europe as in Java. Of birds there are twenty-five genera, all typically Malayan and occurring at least in two, and for the most part in all three of the Malay countries, which are yet absent from Java. Most of these are large and conspicuous forms, such as jays, gapers, bee-eaters, woodpeckers, hornbills, cuckoos, parrots, pheasants, and partridges, as impossible to have remained undiscovered in Java as the large mammalia above referred to. Besides these absent _genera_ there are some curious illustrations of Javan isolation in the _species_; there being several cases in which the same species occurs in all three of the typical Malay countries, while in Java it is represented by an allied species. These occur chiefly among birds, there being no less than seven species which are common to the three great Malay countries but are represented in Java by distinct though closely allied species. From these facts it is impossible to doubt that Java has had a history of its own, quite distinct from that of the other portions of the Malayan area. {384}