In Borneo, Java, and the islands of the archipelago, the tropical vegetation is like that of India. The sago palm, the bread tree, imported from the South Sea Islands, and the tamarind, also im ported, are largely cultivated, as also the cocoanut palm and the sugar palm. Orchids appear in their full variety and beauty. The swamps are covered with mangroves or with the nipa or susa palm; and vanilla, pepper, clove, and nearly all the species are native to this region.
Asia has given to Europe a variety of useful plants; among them, wheat, bar ley, oats, and millet, onions, radishes, peas, beans, spinach, and other vege tables. Nearly all our fruit trees have the same origin; the apple, pear, plum, cherry, almond, pistachio, and mulberry, the raspberry, and even lucerne, were im ported from Asia to Europe.
Fauna.---The fauna of nearly the whole of continental Asia belongs to one single domain. Animals could easily spread over the plains of Europe and Siberia on the one side, and on the other along the high plateau which stretches from Tibet to the land of the Tchuktchis. This wide region can be easily subdivided into the Arctic region, the Boreal, embracing the lowlands of western Siberia ; the Daurian, in the northern parts of the great plateau; and the central Asian. The fauna of Siberia is much like that of eastern Europe. It is the true habitat of all fur-bearing animals, as the bear, wolf, fox, sable, ermine, otter, beaver, common weasel and squirrel; also the hare, wild boar, the stag, the reindeer, and the elk, all belonging to the European faunus, with the addition of several species common to the Arctic fauna.
The central Asian plateau has a fauna of its own. We find there the wild an cestors of several of our domestic ani mals, viz., the wild horse, discovered by Przewalski (Prejevalsky) in the Ala shan Mountains, the wild camel and donkey, and the capra mgargus, from which our common goat is descended. The yak, several species of antelopes, and the roebuck are characteristic of the central Asian fauna; so also are the huge sheep, now disappearing, which found refuge in the wilder parts of the plateaus. In the Steppe region we find the same fauna as in Siberia, with the addition of the tiger, which occasionally reaches Lake Zaisan, and even Lake Baikal; the leopard and hyena coming from warmer regions; and a variety of endemic birds. The bison, which has
now completely disappeared from Europe (with the exception of the Byelovyezh forests in western Russia), is still found in the forests of Caucasus; also the same abundance of pheasants as on the Pacific littoral.
Southern and southeastern Asia belong to a separate zoological domain. The heights of the Himalayas have the fauna of the Tibet portion of the high plateau; but on their S. slopes the fauna is purely Indian and Transgangetic, while a few African species are found on the plains of India and in the Deccan. As a whole the tropical fauna of Asia is richer than the African. It is characterized by the great number of carnivora, which find refuge in the jungles, and by the ele phant, rhinoceros, wild buffalo, red deer, many long-armed apes and half-apes, huge bats, genets, and a variety of ser pents and crocodiles; the bird fauna in cludes vultures, a variety of parrots, pelicans and flamingoes. The fauna is still richer in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, while in the archipelagos of southeastern Asia several Australian species add to its extent.
Ethnography.—The aggregate popu lation of Asia is estimated at 928,000,000, being thus more than one-half of the en tire population of the globe. This popu lation, however, is small, giving only an average of 53 inhabitants per square mile. It is greatest in those parts of Asia which are most favored by rains. The inhabitants of Asia belong to five different groups; the so-called Caucasian (fair type) in western Asia and India; the Mongolian in central and eastern Asia, as also in the Indo-Chinese Penin sula; the Malay in Malacca and the In dian Archipelago; the Dravidas in south eastern India and Ceylon; and the Negritos and Papuas in the virgin for ests of the Philippine Islands and Cel ebes; also a sixth great division com prising the stems which inhabit north eastern Asia, the Hyperboreans, whose affinities are not yet well known. The Mongolian race alone embraces nearly seven-tenths of the population of Asia; the Malay, about two-tenths, and the Caucasian about one-tenth.