Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 75/The Scientific Exploration of the Peninsula
The Scientific Exploration of the Peninsula.
An address at the General Meeting of February 27th, 1917.
BY H. N. RIDLEY, F.R.S., C.M.G.
The Object of the Scientific exploration of a country is to get a clear systematized knowledge of the Fauna, Flora, Ethnology, Authropology and Geology of the country,—in fact of the whole of the Natural History of the area,—and to publish it in such form that it may be accessible to everyone.
To get a clear idea of the whole of Nature, its origin and development, it is not sufficient to study one group alone: for all the various sections of Natural Science have a more or less close relationship with each other; and before we can come to any satis- factory deductions from the facts in one part of the subject, we must know or be easily able to find out the stories of the other parts.
In the early days of the development of a Colony, such as ours, the study of Natural History is usually commenced by a few Amateur Naturalists, who collect specimens and observations on all branches of the subject. Later we get a few to take up special groups or subjects, individually; for it is nor possible for any one man in a lifetime to study every group in detail in so rich an area as a tropical region.
Later still a Museum or Museums are formed, with scientific men attached who, assisted at least by the Government, are able to devote their time to collecting and preserving specimens, as well as recording observations and data, and storing the specimens in the Museums for reference, and publishing the information obtained in reports or publications. And here comes in the great value to the world of such societies as ours which record facts of Natural history, the geography of the country, and all that belongs to a complete knowledge of the country we live in.
Now in the beginning of these researches we find that certain groups of animals are more popular than others, such as birds and butterflies, and we therefore find a larger number of collectors of these animals, and consequently we get sooner a good knowledge of these groups than we do of say beetles or molluscs; and we require a number of collectors and students of these more dif- ficult groups to collect. In many of the country Natural History Societies at home the members contrive to get one or other of their numbers to take up a single group and devote himself to collecting that group, assisted of course by others who send him any specimens they chance upon. I do not know how far some such system could be adopted here, but there are many of our mem- bers living in distant parts of the country who could materially help by catching and sending insects or other such easily collected animals to the various naturalists who in this country are studying them.
When I first arrived in this country in 1889, large areas of forest and mountain, now easily reached by train and motor car, were only accessible by long and difficult marches, and the few naturalists in the country found it impossible to get to these re- mote spots in the time and with the funds at their disposal. But the rapid development of agriculture of late years has resulted in the increased accessibility and in the settling of Europeans in parts of the Peninsula at that time out of reach. Many of these Europeans would assist in collecting if shown the way, I am sure, and indeed I have great cause to be grateful to very many who in the course of my wanderings into their districts have given me the greatest assistance in collecting plants.
But the wide developments of agriculture of late years has not been, alas, all to the advantage of the Naturalist, for the felling and burning of the forest has caused the disappearance of many plants and probably many insects and other animals; and as this work is still continuing, it becomes of more and more importance to save specimens (which is all we can do) of the vanishing flora and fauna, ere they become as extinct as Dodos.
I would now like to run over the various branches of Natural Science and see how far we have progressed towards a systematic investigation and record of the separate groups as far as regards this country.
In Zoology we have already published the account of the Reptiles and Batrachia by Boulenger, and I understand the works on the Mammals and Birds are nearly complete. These have been done by the zoologists of the Federated Malay States Museum.
In fishes we have an account of those of fresh-water by Dunek, a Naturalist who was here some years ago. In Marine fish we have no separate work; but those of our seas have been mentioned in works by Blecker and Weber, dealing with the fishes generally of the Todian and Malayan Seas.
A complete separate account of those occurring in our own waters is required.
On Molluscs papers have been written by De Morgan.
Of Insects Butterflies have been well done many years ago by Distant in the well known book Rhopalocera Malayana but of course there have been since then many additions and corrections made.
The Cockroaches have been well described and figured by Dr. Hanitsch in our journal lately and I believe the Mosquitos are pretty well known.
But of the rest of the insect fauna we have only scattered papers and descriptions in journals and other works which are often inaccessible to the local student and in any case entail a lot of work in searching among descriptions of species from all manner of countries to find the ones recorded from the Malay Peninsula.
The same state of affairs rules also in nearly all the other groups of invertebrates from centipedes, and spiders to Corals and Marine organisms generally. It would be highly desirable to collect all the notes and descriptions of the various groups applying to the Malay Peninsula, and put them together and publish them in an accessible form so that we might have an idea of what amount of knowledge on these animals had been obtained. already and form a base for further work.
In Botany, at least that of flowering plants and ferns, pro- gress is being made as fast as possible. Before my arrival in the East in 1889, it was proposed by the F. M. S. Government to publish a flora based on the plants collected by Kunstler, Scorte- chini and Wray in Perak, Sir Cecil Clementi-Smith very wisely urged that the flora should not be confined to these collections, which were practically limited to the Perak mountains; but that a flora of the whole of the Malay Peninsula should be taken in hand.
The work was to be done by Dr. King and Sir Joseph Hooker: the number of plants known or collected in the Peninsula at that date was small; and King arranged to publish a preliminary series of papers known as the Materials for a Flora of the Malay Penin- sula in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. This took many years; and in fact 2 orders Euphorbiaceae and Urticaceae are not yet published. In the meantime extensive collections were made all over the Peninsula and the work got fuller and fuller as it went on. Sir George King died some years ago and Mr. Camble, and Major Gage of the Calcutta Gardens continued the Materials, while I did the Monocotyledons and some other orders. I am now engaged in re-writing the whole flora, to be published as soon as may be in book form, condensed and largely revised and added to, so that the public may in a few years, I hope, possess a work in a few volumes so written and illustrated that they will have no diffi- culty in identifying any plants that they may meet with. The work will take some time as there are known between 8,000 and 9,000 species; and all that have been already described will have to be checked over and carefully re-examined. However the greater part of the Polypetalae and Monocotyledons are already finished, and I hope in a few years to complete the work.
The Cellular plants,—Mosses, Lichens, Fungi and Algae, have. not been entirely neglected; but such as have been described have been published in scattered papers in various journals; and there is a large field for work both in collecting and investigating in these groups.
Considering the importance of tin and other minerals to the Peninsula, it seems remarkable that so long a period elapsed be- fore any attempt was made to study the Geology of the country. Practically nothing of importance was published till the arrival of Mr. Scrivenor. Logan in Logan's journal published indeed some papers on the rocks of Singapore, but he was no geologist and the work was extraordinarily erroneous.
We have now at least several extremely valuable papers by Mr. Scrivenor; and we shall hope for many more such researches as he has made.
Ethnology and Anthropology we are well advanced in, thanks to the works of Skeat, Wilkinson, Robinson and many others.
But there is one branch of Natural Science which has been curiously neglected, that of Meteorology. It is true that rainfall readings have been taken and published for many years in some parts of the Peninsula; but the returns are in many cases I fear dubious and in the earlier days of Singapore when the returns would have been exceptionally valuable, as showing us if there had been any change in the climate at all, there are so far as I know no records. The late Mr. Knight was the only person I know of, who took an interest in the subject at all. Unfortunately he published little; but he may have left notes behind him which would be worth preserving, if they could be obtained by the Society. It would be very desirable if some member of the society would take up the subject of the meteorology of the Malay Peninsula collect- ing and utilizing such returns and reports published during the last 50 years. The subject is one of much interest and importance.
When I arrived in Singapore in 1889, the greater part of the Peninsula was still a blank as regards Natural History research. the few Naturalists we had then, had only been able to collect in a few of the accessible parts such as Singapore, Malacca, Penang and parts of Perak. Even the geography of the Peninsula was very far from complete as may be seen by referring to our first editions of the Map, and even now large areas of the centre and East coast have not yet been visited by any Naturalists. When this is done without doubt very many more new species will be collected in almost every group.
Taking Botany again as a sample of how far we have collect- ed specimens of all our flowering plants, I may say that by far the largest number of the plants of the low country are now well known, and it is not easy to get big additions of novelties in the low lands of etiher coast, and that thanks very largely to Messrs. Robinson and Kloss who have greatly added to our knowledge of the botany of the highest accessible mountains we have obtained the greater part of the flora of above 4,000 feet elevation. This does not mean that we know all the plants in our forests. It is a poor collecting trip still which does not yield some novelties even in the low country. But we have in our 9,000 known species a very large proportion of the flora, and enough to base at least some deductions as to the origin and history of the flora of the Peninsula.
We have practically a sample collection, not a complete one. The same thing applies, I take it, to most of the zoological groups; but I believe that I shall not be wrong in stating that in Mammals. birds, reptiles and batrachians and butterflies we have now an almost absolutely complete knowledge of the species. The number of novelties to be added is probably small. Further explorations in out of the way localities will probably yield im- portant results in most groups. We have not enough naturalists to get over the whole ground in a short time so that the residents in these distant parts may often be able to assist in sending specimens to our museums of insects or plants or other such things that they may accidentally come across. As an example I may mention that of two new kinds of bats which some years ago I accidentally ob- tained I believe that neither have ever been caught again.
I have now I think given some idea of the progress in Natural History that we have made here in the past quarter of a century. It is very considerable; but a great deal remains to be done. The Society by its Journal and by indirectly and directly interesting residents in the knowledge of the Natural History of the Peninsula has played an important part in this work, and I trust that it may continue to do the same for very many years to come.