VI. 



In the Home of the Nautilus. 



DR. ARTHUR WILLEY (formerly of University College, 

 London) last year resigned the post of instructor in biology in 

 Columbia College, New York, in order to accept the Balfour Student- 

 ship of the University of Cambridge. He undertook as a condition 

 of his election to the studentship to proceed to New Britain in order 

 to attempt the investigation of the embryology of the Pearly Nautilus. 

 Dr. Willey was assisted in his equipment by a grant from the 

 Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society of London, and 

 started for his destination in last September. The following letter is 

 the first received from Dr. Willey since he arrived in New Britain, 

 and it shows that he is in a fair way to carry out the purpose of his 

 journey, whilst it is full of matter interesting to naturalists, and will, 

 I feel sure, be welcome to the readers of Natural Science. 



E. Ray Lankester. 



Dear Professor Lankester, 



When I arrived at Batavia at the beginning of last 

 November, I had still upwards of three weeks to wait before going on 

 to the Bismarck Archipelago by the North German Lloyd ss. 

 " Liibeck," and accordingly wended my way to the magnificent 

 botanical gardens, known as " 's Lands Plantentuin," at Buitenzorg. 

 Here every kindness was shown me by the director, Dr. Melchior 

 Treub, and by Dr. Janse. 



My imagination having been for a long time excited by what I had 

 heard of the extraordinary parasitic flowers of the Rafflesiacese, I 

 made an excursion, accompanied by a most intelligent native employe 

 of the gardens, to the virgin forest on the flank of the huge extinct 

 volcano, Salak (West Java), where Rafflesia Rochnsscnii 1 was discovered 

 by Teijsmann and Binnendijk in 1850, and is till now only known 

 from this locality. 



After a somewhat fatiguing scramble through the bush, the 

 astonishing instinct of my guide led us to several groups of the sessile 

 flowers, which are about the size of the closed fist, growing on the 

 roots of Cissus, and almost concealed under the humus. 



1 Rafflesia is known to the Malays by the name of " padma besar," while the 

 allied hermaphrodite genus Brugniansia is called "padma k'chil " (small padma). 

 Balanophora is also called " padma." 



