Amy Brooks - "Princess Polly's Playmates"

Rev. E. Donald Carr - "A Night in the Snow"

Agnes C. Laut - "Canada: the Empire of the North"

H. R. Haweis - "Parsifal"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Malay Archipelago Volume 1

b >> by Alfred Russell Wallace >> The Malay Archipelago Volume 1




Its strong and swift flight is sufficient to save it from its enemies
when on the wing, but if it were equally conspicuous when at rest it
could not long escape extinction, owing to the attacks of the
insectivorous birds and reptiles that abound in the tropical forests.
A very closely allied species, Kallima inachis, inhabits India, where
it is very common, and specimens are sent in every collection from
the Himalayas. On examining a number of these, it will be seen that
no two are alike, but all the variations correspond to those of
dead leaves. Every tint of yellow, ash, brown, and red is found
here, and in many specimens there occur patches and spots formed
of small black dots, so closely resembling the way in which
minute fungi grow on leaves that it is almost impossible at first
not to believe that fungi have gown on the butterflies
themselves!

If such an extraordinary adaptation as this stood alone, it would
be very difficult to offer any explanation of it; but although it
is perhaps the most perfect case of protective imitation known,
there are hundreds of similar resemblances in nature, and from
these it is possible to deduce a general theory of the manner in
which they have been slowly brought about. The principle of
variation and that of "natural selection," or survival of the
fittest, as elaborated by Mr. Darwin in his celebrated "Origin of
Species," offers the foundation for such a theory; and I have
myself endeavoured to apply it to all the chief cases of
imitation in an article published in the "Westminster Review" for
1867, entitled, "Mimicry, and other Protective Resemblances
Among Animals," to which any reader is referred who wishes to
know more about this subject.

In Sumatra, monkeys are very abundant, and at Lobo Kaman they
used to frequent the trees which overhang the guard-house, and
give me a fine opportunity of observing their gambols. Two
species of Semnopithecus were most plentiful--monkeys of a
slender form, with very long tails. Not being much shot at they
are rather bold, and remain quite unconcerned when natives alone
are present; but when I came out to look at them, they would
stare for a minute or two and then make off. They take tremendous
leaps from the branches of one tree to those at another a little
lower, and it is very amusing when a one strong leader takes a
bold jump, to see the others following with more or less
trepidation; and it often happens that one or two of the last
seem quite unable to make up their minds to leap until the rest
are disappearing, when, as if in desperation at being left alone,
they throw themselves frantically into the air, and often go
crashing through the slender branches and fall to the ground.

A very curious ape, the Siamang, was also rather abundant, but it
is much less bold than the monkeys, keeping to the virgin forests
and avoiding villages. This species is allied to the little long-
armed apes of the genus Hylobates, but is considerably larger,
and differs from them by having the two first fingers of the feet
united together, nearly to the endm as does its Latin native,
Siamanga syndactyla. It moves much more slowly than the active
Hylobates, keeping lower down in trees, and not indulging in such
tremendous leaps; but it is still very active, and by means of
its immense long arms, five feet six inches across in an adult
about three feet high, can swing itself along among the trees at
a great rate. I purchased a small one, which had been caught by
the natives and tied up so tightly as to hurt it. It was rather
savage at first, and tried to bite; but when we had released it
and given it two poles under the verandah to hang upon, securing
it by a short cord, running along the pole with a ring so that
it could move easily, it became more contented, and would swing
itself about with great rapidity. It ate almost any kind of
fruit and rice, and I was in hopes to have brought it to England,
but it died just before I started. It took a dislike to me at
first, which I tried to get over by feeding it constantly myself.
One day, however, it bit me so sharply while giving it food, that
I lost patience and gave it rather a severe beating, which I
regretted afterwards, as from that time it disliked me more than
ever. It would allow my Malay boys to play with it, and for hours
together would swing by its arms from pole to pole and on to the
rafters of the verandah, with so much ease and rapidity, that it
was a constant source of amusement to us. When I returned to
Singapore it attracted great attention, as no one had seen a
Siamang alive before, although it is not uncommon in some parts
of the Malay peninsula.

As the Orangutan is known to inhabit Sumatra, and was in fact
first discovered there, I made many inquiries about it; but none
of the natives had ever heard of such an animal, nor could I find
any of the Dutch officials who knew anything about it. We may
conclude, therefore, that it does not inhabit the great forest
plains in the east of Sumatra where one would naturally expect to
find it, but is probably confined to a limited region in the
northwest part of the island entirely in the hands of native
rulers. The other great Mammalia of Sumatra, the elephant and the
rhinoceros, are more widely distributed; but the former is much
more scarce than it was a few years ago, and seems to retire
rapidly before the spread of cultivation. Lobo Kaman tusks
and bones are occasionally found about in the forest, but the living
animal is now never seen. The rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sumatranus)
still abounds, and I continually saw its tracks and its dung, and
once disturbed one feeding, which went crashing away through the
jungle, only permitting me a momentary glimpse of it through the
dense underwood. I obtained a tolerably perfect cranium, and a
number of teeth, which were picked up by the natives.

Another curious animal, which I had met with in Singapore and in
Borneo, but which was more abundant here, is the Galeopithecus,
or flying lemur. This creature has a broad membrane extending all
aound its body to the extremities of the toes, and to the point
of the rather long tail. This enables it to pass obliquely
through the air from one tree to another. It is sluggish in its
motions, at least by day, going up a tree by short runs of a few
feet, and then stopping a moment as if the action was difficult.
It rests during the day clinging to the trunks of trees, where
its olive or brown fur, mottled with irregular whitish spots and
blotches, resembles closely the colour of mottled bark, and no
doubt helps to protect it. Once, in a bright twilight, I saw one
of these animals run up a trunk in a rather open place, and then
glide obliquely through the air to another tree, on which it
alighted near its base, and immediately began to ascend. I paced
the distance from the one tree to the other, and found it to be
seventy yards; and the amount of descent I estimated at not more
than thirty-five or forty feet, or less than one in five. This I
think proves that the animal must have some power of guiding
itself through the air, otherwise in so long a distance it would
have little chance of alighting exactly upon the trunk. Like the
Cuscus of the Moluccas, the Galeopithecus feeds chiefly on
leaves, and possesses a very voluminous stomach and long
convoluted intestines. The brain is very small, and the animal
possesses such remarkable tenacity of life, that it is
exceedingly difficult to kill it by any ordinary means. The tail
is prehensile; and is probably made use of as an additional
support while feeding. It is said to have only a single young one
at a time, and my own observation confirms this statement, for I
once shot a female with a very small blind and naked little
creature clinging closely to its breast, which was quite bare and
much wrinkled, reminding me of the young of Marsupials, to which
it seemed to form a transition. On the back, and extending over
the limbs and membrane, the fur of these animals is short, but
exquisitely soft, resembling in its texture that of the
Chinchilla.

I returned to Palembang by water, and while staying a day at a
village while a boat was being made watertight, I had the good
fortune to obtain a male, female, and young bird of one of the
large hornbills. I had sent my hunters to shoot, and while I was
at breakfast they returned, bringing me a fine large male of the
Buceros bicornis, which one of them assured me he had shot while
feeding the female, which was shut up in a hole in a tree. I had
often read of this curious habit, and immediately returned to the
place, accompanied by several of the natives. After crossing a
stream and a bog, we found a large tree leaning over some water,
and on its lower side, at a height of about twenty feet, appeared
a small hole, and what looked like a quantity of mud, which I was
assured had been used in stopping up the large hole. After a
while we heard the harsh cry of a bird inside, and could see the
white extremity of its beak put out. I offered a rupee to anyone
who would go up and get the bird out, with the egg or young one;
but they all declared it was too difficult, and they were afraid
to try. I therefore very reluctantly came away. About an hour
afterwards, much to my surprise, a tremendous loud, hoarse
screaming was heard, and the bird was brought me, together with a
young one which had been found in the hole. This was a most
curious object, as large as a pigeon, but without a particle of
plumage on any part of it. It was exceedingly plump and soft, and
with a semi-transparent skin, so that it looked more like a bag
of jelly, with head and feet stuck on, than like a real bird.

The extraordinary habit of the male, in plastering up the female
with her egg, and feeding her during the whole time of
incubation, and until the young one is fledged, is common to
several of the large hornbills, and is one of those strange facts
in natural history which are "stranger than fiction."

CHAPTER IX.

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS.

IN the first chapter of this work I have stated generally the
reasons which lead us to conclude that the large islands in the
western portion of the Archipelago--Java, Sumatra, and Borneo--as
well as the Malay peninsula and the Philippine islands, have been
recently separated from the continent of Asia. I now propose to
give a sketch of the Natural History of these, which I term the
Indo-Malay islands, and to show how far it supports this view,
and how much information it is able to give us of the antiquity
and origin of the separate islands.

The flora of the Archipelago is at present so imperfectly known,
and I have myself paid so little attention to it, that I cannot
draw from it many facts of importance. The Malayan type of
vegetation is however a very important one; and Dr. Hooker
informs us, in his "Flora Indica," that it spreads over all the
moister and more equable parts of India, and that many plants
found in Ceylon, the Himalayas, the Nilghiri, and Khasia mountains
are identical with those of Java and the Malay peninsula. Among
the more characteristic forms of this flora are the rattans--
climbing palms of the genus Calamus, and a great variety of
tall, as well as stemless palms. Orchids, Aracae, Zingiberaceae
and ferns, are especially abundant, and the genus Grammatophyllum--
a gigantic epiphytal orchid, whose clusters of leaves and flower-stems
are ten or twelve feet long--is peculiar to it. Here, too, is the
domain of the wonderful pitcher plants (Nepenthaceae), which are only
represented elsewhere by solitary species in Ceylon, Madagascar, the
Seychelles, Celebes, and the Moluccas. Those celebrated fruits, the
Mangosteen and the Durian, are natives of this region, and will hardly
grow out of the Archipelago. The mountain plants of Java have already
been alluded to as showing a former connexion with the continent of
Asia; and a still more extraordinary and more ancient connection
with Australia has been indicated by Mr. Low's collections from
the summit of Kini-balou, the loftiest mountain in Borneo.

Plants have much greater facilities for passing across arms of
the sea than animals. The lighter seeds are easily carried by the
winds, and many of them are specially adapted to be so carried.
Others can float a long tune unhurt in the water, and are drifted
by winds and currents to distant shores. Pigeons, and other
fruit-eating birds, are also the means of distributing plants,
since the seeds readily germinate after passing through their
bodies. It thus happens that plants which grow on shores and
lowlands have a wide distribution, and it requires an extensive
knowledge of the species of each island to determine the
relations of their floras with any approach to accuracy. At
present we have no such complete knowledge of the botany of
the several islands of the Archipelago; and it is only by such
striking phenomena as the occurrence of northern and even
European genera on the summits of the Javanese mountains that we
can prove the former connection of that island with the Asiatic
continent. With land animals, however, the case is very
different. Their means of passing a wide expanse of sea are far
more restricted. Their distribution has been more accurately
studied, and we possess a much more complete knowledge of such
groups as mammals and birds in most of the islands, than we do of
the plants. It is these two classes which will supply us with
most of our facts as to the geographical distribution of
organized beings in this region.

The number of Mammalia known to inhabit the Indo-Malay region is
very considerable, exceeding 170 species. With the exception of
the bats, none of these have any regular means of passing arms of
the sea many miles in extent, and a consideration of their
distribution must therefore greatly assist us in determining
whether these islands have ever been connected with each other or
with the continent since the epoch of existing species.

The Quadrumana or monkey tribe form one of the most
characteristic features of this region. Twenty-four distinct
species are known to inhabit it, and these are distributed with
tolerable uniformity over the islands, nine being found in Java,
ten in the Malay peninsula, eleven in Sumatra, and thirteen in
Borneo. The great man-like Orangutans are found only in Sumatra
and Borneo; the curious Siamang (next to them in size) in Sumatra
and Malacca; the long-nosed monkey only in Borneo; while every
island has representatives of the Gibbons or long-armed apes, and
of monkeys. The lemur-like animals, Nycticebus, Tarsius, and
Galeopithecus, are found on all the islands.

Seven species found on the Malay peninsula extend also into
Sumatra, four into Borneo, and three into Java; while two range
into Siam and Burma, and one into North India. With the
exception of the Orangutan, the Siamang, the Tarsius spectrum,
and the Galeopithecus, all the Malayan genera of Quadrumana are
represented in India by closely allied species, although, owing
to the limited range of most of these animals, so few are
absolutely identical.

Of Carnivora, thirty-three species are known from the Indo-Malay
region, of which about eight are found also in Burma and India.
Among these are the tiger, leopard, a tiger-cat, civet, and
otter; while out of the twenty genera of Malayan Carnivora,
thirteen are represented in India by more or less closely allied
species. As an example, the Malayan bear is represented in North
India by the Tibetan bear, both of which may be seen alive at the
Zoological Society's Gardens.

The hoofed animals are twenty-two in number, of which about seven
extend into Burmahand India. All the deer are of peculiar
species, except two, which range from Malacca into India. Of the
cattle, one Indian species reaches Malacca, while the Bos sondiacus
of Java and Borneo is also found in Siam and Burma. A goat-like animal
is found in Sumatra which has its representative in India; while the
two-horned rhinoceros of Sumatra and the single-horned species of
Java, long supposed to be peculiar to these islands, are now both
ascertained to exist in Burma, Pegu, and Moulmein. The elephant of
Sumatra, Borneo, and Malacca is now considered to be identical with
that of Ceylon and India.

In all other groups of Mammalia the same general phenomena recur.
A few species are identical with those of India. A much larger
number are closely allied or representative forms, while there
are always a small number of peculiar genera, consisting of
animals unlike those found in any other part of the world. There
are about fifty bats, of which less than one-fourth are Indian
species; thirty-four Rodents (squirrels, rats, &c.), of which six
or eight only are Indian; and ten Insectivora, with one exception
peculiar to the Malay region. The squirrels are very abundant
and characteristic, only two species out of twenty-five extending
into Siam and Burma. The Tupaias are curious insect-eaters,
which closely resemble squirrels, and are almost confined to the
Malay islands, as,are the small feather-tailed Ptilocerus lowii
of Borneo, and the curious long-snouted and naked-tailed Gymnurus
rafllesii.

As the Malay peninsula is a part of the continent of Asia, the
question of the former union of the islands to the mainland will
be best elucidated by studying the species which are found in the
former district, and also in some of the islands. Now, if we
entirely leave out of consideration the bats, which have the
power of flight, there are still forty-eight species of mammals
common to the Malay peninsula and the three large islands. Among
these are seven Quadrumana (apes, monkeys, and lemurs), animals
who pass their whole existence in forests, who never swim, and
who would be quite unable to traverse a single mile of sea;
nineteen Carnivora, some of which no doubt might cross by
swimming, but we cannot suppose so large a number to have passed
in this way across a strait which, except at one point, is from
thirty to fifty miles wide; and five hoofed animals, including
the Tapir, two species of rhinoceros, and an elephant. Besides
these there are thirteen Rodents and four Insectivora, including
a shrew-mouse and six squirrels, whose unaided passage over
twenty miles of sea is even more inconceivable than that of the
larger animals.

But when we come to the cases of the same species inhabiting two
of the more widely separated islands, the difficulty is much
increased. Borneo is distant nearly 150 miles from Biliton, which
is about fifty miles from Banca, and this fifteen from Sumatra,
yet there are no less than thirty-six species of mammals common
to Borneo and Sumatra. Java again is more than 250 miles from
Borneo, yet these two islands have twenty-two species in common,
including monkeys, lemurs, wild oxen, squirrels and shrews. These
facts seem to render it absolutely certain that there has been at
some former period a connection between all these islands and the
mainland, and the fact that most of the animals common to two or
more of then, show little or no variation, but are often absolutely
identical, indicates that the separation must have been recent in
a geological sense; that is, not earlier than the Newer Pliocene
epoch, at which time land animals began to assimilate closely with
those now existing.

Even the bats furnish an additional argument, if one were needed,
to show that the islands could not have been peopled from each
other and from the continent without some former connection. For
if such had been the mode of stocking them with animals, it is
quite certain that creatures which can fly long distances would
be the first to spread from island to island, and thus produce an
almost perfect uniformity of species over the whole region. But
no such uniformity exists, and the bats of each island are
almost, if not quite, as distinct as the other mammals. For
example, sixteen species are known in Borneo, and of these ten
are found in Java and five in Sumatra, a proportion about the
same as that of the Rodents, which have no direct means of
migration. We learn from this fact, that the seas which separate
the islands from each other are wide enough to prevent the
passage even of flying animals, and that we must look to the same
causes as having led to the present distribution of both groups.
The only sufficient cause we can imagine is the former connection
of all the islands with the continent, and such a change is in
perfect harmony with what we know of the earth's past history,
and is rendered probable by the remarkable fact that a rise of
only three hundred feet would convert the wide seas that separate
them into an immense winding valley or plain about three hundred
miles wide and twelve hundred long. It may, perhaps, be thought
that birds which possess the power of flight in so pre-eminent a
degree, would not be limited in their range by arms of the sea,
and would thus afford few indications of the former union or
separation of the islands they inhabit. This, however, is not the
case. A very large number of birds appear to be as strictly
limited by watery barriers as are quadrupeds; and as they have
been so much more attentively collected, we have more complete
materials to work upon, and are able to deduce from them still
more definite and satisfactory results. Some groups, however,
such as the aquatic birds, the waders, and the birds of prey, are
great wanderers; other groups are little known except to
ornithologists. I shall therefore refer chiefly to a few of the
best known and most remarkable families of birds as a sample of
the conclusions furnished by the entire class.

The birds of the Indo-Malay region have a close resemblance to
those of India; for though a very large proportion of the species
are quite distinct, there are only about fifteen peculiar genera,
and not a single family group confined to the former district.
If, however, we compare the islands with the Burmese, Siamese,
and Malayan countries, we shall find still less difference, and
shall be convinced that all are closely united by the bond of a
former union. In such well-known families as the woodpeckers,
parrots, trogons, barbets, kingfishers, pigeons, and pheasants,
we find some identical species spreading over all India, and as
far as Java and Borneo, while a very large proportion are common
to Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.

The force of these facts can only be appreciated when we come to
treat the islands of the Austro-Malay region, and show how
similar barriers have entirely prevented the passage of birds
from one island to another, so that out of at least three hundred
and fifty land birds inhabiting Java and Borneo, not more than
ten have passed eastward into Celebes. Yet the Straits of
Macassar are not nearly so wide as the Java sea, and at least a
hundred species are common to Borneo and Java.

I will now give two examples to show how a knowledge of the
distribution of animals may reveal unsuspected facts in the past
history of the earth. At the eastern extremity of Sumatra, and
separated from it by a strait about fifteen miles wide, is the
small rocky island of Banca, celebrated for its tin mines. One of
the Dutch residents there sent some collections of birds and
animals to Leyden, and among them were found several species
distinct from those of the adjacent coast of Sumatra. One of
these was a squirrel (Sciurus bangkanus), closely allied to three
other species inhabiting respectively the Malay peninsula,
Sumatra, and Borneo, but quite as distinct from them all as they
are from each other. There were also two new ground thrushes of
the genus Pitta, closely allied to, but quite distinct from, two
other species inhabiting both Sumatra and Borneo, and which did
not perceptibly differ in these large and widely separated
islands. This is just as if the Isle of Man possessed a peculiar
species of thrush and blackbird, distinct from the birds which
are common to England and Ireland.

These curious facts would indicate that Banca may have existed as
a distinct island even longer than Sumatra and Borneo, and there
are some geological and geographical facts which render this not
so improbable as it would at first seem to be. Although on the
map Banca appears so close to Sumatra, this does not arise from
its having been recently separated from it; for the adjacent
district of Palembang is new land, being a great alluvial swamp
formed by torrents from the mountains a hundred miles distant.

Banca, on the other hand, agrees with Malacca, Singapore, and the
intervening island of Lingen, in being formed of granite and
laterite; and these have all most likely once formed an extension
of the Malay peninsula. As the rivers of Borneo and Sumatra have
been for ages filling up the intervening sea, we may be sure that
its depth has recently been greater, and it is very probable that
those large islands were never directly connected with each other
except through the Malay peninsula. At that period the same
species of squirrel and Pitta may have inhabited all these
countries; but when the subterranean disturbances occurred which
led to the elevation of the volcanoes of Sumatra, the small
island of Banca may have been separated first, and its
productions being thus isolated might be gradually modified
before the separation of the larger islands had been completed.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.