WCP2355

[1]^{1, 2}

Cebu

September 9th 1877

Dear Sir

Since writing to you from Placer I have been so fortunate as to obtain in the south of Negros one of the small "leopards" as the Spaniards call them. It is a small feline closely resembling, as I anticipated, one of the Bornean cats of which I do not recall the name,— if it be not identical with it. From the same locality I procured a rat having its throat chest and inner surfaces of the [1 word illeg.] limb tinged with rusty red. Perhaps this is a [illeg. mis-spelling of Phloemys] Phloeomys, with which animal I am unacquainted even by description. In my last letter speaking of the reported occurrence of a Mochu[?] in Balabac I meant of course a Tragulus. When in Cebu the other day I made some enquiry about the "earth-rat" but learnt nothing further. I am inclined to believe in its existence for my informant was an intelligent English Engineer and he maintained incidentally that the cats would not touch them, which is fair evidence that he did not mistake a common rat for something else. There [1 word faded and illeg.] at any rate a probability that we have here a species of Spalax (Rhizomys?). I find that the [1 word faded and illeg.] called in Mindon[?] is known as "Tamaras" and that a specimen was exhibited in the Philadelphia Exhibition where it was catalogued as "Antilope depressicornis". In a Spanish work it is described as "a species of buffalo, savage and untamable, having horns like those of a goat." Allowing for looseness of description, this can hardly apply to one of the Aroulius[?] deer as to an ordinary wild buffalo. The animal is stated to occur in the interior forests of Luzon and Mindanas as well as in Mindoro.

In accounting for the scantiness of the Mammalian fauna of the Philippines, you intimate that the fauna may have been more varied at some past time and since have been in great part extinguished by a very general submergence of the area. However this may be as affecting the partial extinction of the fauna, it is certain that the greater portion of (if not the entire) Archipelago has undergone submergence at a comparatively recent date and to a great depth, as attested by the occurrence of up-raised coral limestone in all directions and often at considerable heights on the mountains. The evidence with regard to the past physical history of the Philippines is at present too meagre to allow of one's seeing how far it may dovetail into the scheme of geographical mutations which you have sketched out in explanation of the relations of Borneo and Java with — [2] the Malay Penninsula and Siam; but it is impossible to avoid speculating that the rise in the bed of the China Sea which you postulate for the continental connexion of Borneo must have affected the Philippine area and produced a land connexion through Palawan, whereby the earlier immigration to the Philippines of Indo Malayan[?] mammals took place. An elevation of 100 fts, if it extended to Palawan, could connect that island with Borneo and Mindors; and it could still maintain its present character of a bridge with deep seas (inland seas) on either side, but with an extension of land surface along its N.W. shores as far as the 100 ft. line from which the sea-bed shelves everywhere now rather suddenly to 200 and 300 fts; and with it long central mountain chain rising to as much as 8,000 fts,in its higher eminences. The Mammalia, if in process of emigration to the Philippines, might doubtless have undergone much extinction by a succeeding submergence. And if the exploration of Palawan should furnish evidence that something like this has been the course of events, one may enquire whether the great submergence in the Philippines may not have been directly connected with the "getting Borneo out of the way" whilst Java was receiving its Indo-Chinese element. I am myself hopeful that Palawan will be the key to the explanation of a good deal of the past history of <Borneo> as well as of the Philippines; but it seems probable that no demonstrative evidence will be got until the extinct Tertiary fauna of the sub-region begins to be known.

I have some thoughts of proposing to Mr. Evans when the work here is pretty well advanced, which it ought to be in a year's time, to return to Borneo and resume the cave-exploration. I will only do so, however, on condition of being paid a regular salary, so as to be able to work at the caves without the distraction of being dependent for an income on general collections, which experience has twice taught me to be simply fatal to anything like a satisfactory investigation. It is idle to expect that this work will get itself done for nothing, and the only thing to be considered is whether it is desirable to send out a more competent man at a heavy cost or to employ me at a moderate one comparatively. I now much regret not having met Mr. Evans or yourself when I was in London last year though I called on Mr. Evans three times; and my intention of writing Ms. Pengelly was frustrated by my leaving for Manila some months before I had arranged.

In the "Geog[raphical]. Distrib[ution]", ought not the distribution of the Canidae to be extended to Borneo? I have seen Camis rutalaus in a catalogue of Bornean Mammals by Gray — [3] I think as an appendix to Low's "Sarawak" (1848); and the Batang Lupar Dyaks speak of a wild dog going in packs in the jungle. This might of course be only an introduced species which has become feral.

I observe that you exclude Volvociora among the Campephagidae from the Philippine area. V. Coerulescens is included in L Walden's "Catalogue" and I have met with it Luzon and in tolerable abundance in Cebu. Among the Cinclidae, Flenicurus[?] ranges to N.W. Borneo. I have myself shot H. ruficapillus in Sarawak. Jardinus again is Bornean, though like Henicurus rarely met. In the Bucerotidae, the genus Penelopides is made to consist of one species confined in Celebes. Is this not an inadvertence? I made these remarks because I believe you wish I have your attention called to all errors, however slight, in your work: and of course, they require no reply if they prove uncalled for.

I remain, dear Sir, | Yours truly | S. Everett³

My address is "Care of Messrs. Smith, Bell, & Co. Manila"