Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/178
thus enumerated by him was 3,141, and are listed in tables; of these 1,668 were listed by name, while 1,473 are > so far as known, without names. The number found is nearly twice as great as heretofore known; as more accurate charts of the archipelago are made, it is believed the number will be increased.
AREA OF THE ISLANDS
The total area of the islands is 115,026 square miles. There are two islands with areas exceeding 10,000 square miles each, namely, Luzon with 40,969 and Mindanao with 36,292. There are 9 islands each of which has an area of more than 1,000 square miles and less than 10,000. There are 20 between 100 and 1,000 square miles, 73 between 10 and 100 square miles, and 262 between 1 and 10 square miles. The remaining number, 2,775, or seven-eighths of all, have areas less than a square mile each.
VERY FEW MAMMALIA
The fauna most closely resembles that of the neighboring Malayan Islands, but at the same time shows certain remarkable differences from them. Thus there are very few mammalia in comparison with the number in Borneo and Java. There are but two species of monkeys, but three representatives of the carnivora, and of the deer tribe but six species. Small rodents are very scarce except in the large seaports, while, on the other hand, there are at least 30 species of bats. There are no large mammalia except the carabao, a few of which are still found wild, and the timarau or antelope buffalo of Mindoro. Altogether there are but 23 species of terrestrial mammals known on the islands.
Not only does the fauna of the Philippine Islands differ in certain marked respects from that of the adjacent islands of the East India archipelago, but the different islands of the Philippines differ among themselves in their fauna. The timarau is found only in Mindoro, porcupines are found only in Paragua and in the Calamianes Islands, and there are numerous species of animals which have been found only in certain parts of the archipelago.
GREAT VARIETY OF BIRDS
Such peculiarities of distribution of land animals may be explained easily, but it is not so easy to explain similar facts concerning the distribution of birds. Paragua and the Calamianes Islands possess several species which are not found elsewhere in the archipelago, but which are similar to species found in Borneo. Of the 286 species of birds found in Luzon 51 at least are not known to occur outside of that island. The avifauna of Samar and Leyte contains 22 species not found elsewhere, and similarly in Mindanao and Basilan are found 17 species peculiar to those islands. One of the most striking cases, however, is that of Cebu, which, although a near neighbor to Negros on one side and Bohol on the other, contains 9 species of birds not found elsewhere. The total number of species of land birds known is a little over 300, a larger number than in Java; of these many are game birds, such as snipe, plover, quail, duck, and geese. In spite of this richness of species there are many important genera found in the other Malay Islands which are not represented here, while on the other hand more than two-thirds of the Philippine species are peculiar to that group of islands. These facts strongly emphasize the isolation of the archipelago.
THE FORESTS
The forests of the archipelago are of wide extent and embrace a great variety of woods, many of them highly valuable. Woods suitable for the finest cabinet-work, for veneering, and for artistic purposes, and also woods adapted to ship or house building and other economic uses, are found in great abundance. There