Report of a [ourney Around the World. 143 



to the hotel for tiffin, dreadful with a "rice table" and ten or more 

 contributions to it, each a little more pungent than mustard or 

 cayenne pepper, which required a suitable rest after it. Then with 

 a carriage and friends we drove through the garden and to the 

 experimental grounds, which were most interesting ; various crops, 

 including coffee, india-rubber and tobacco, were growing finely. 

 By the roadside we got some mangoes, large, but poor and turpen- 

 tiuey, and which had insects inside, in the stone itself ; these pests 

 were common ; jackfruit was also for sale. In the evening, rain. 



Monday. Fresh and beautiful in the morning, and we visited 

 the Zoological Museum we had not been able to squeeze into yes- 

 terday. Just within the doorway was a large cage with beautiful 

 long green tree snakes which had just shed their skins ; the strength 

 of their muscles was shown by the horizontal extension of their 

 bodies at least two feet, the tail holding to a branch. There were 

 also living leaf insects and walking sticks in considerable numbers. 

 The preserved snakes were fine, especially some bright blue ones 

 said to be very poisonous. A lizard of great size from Flores is 

 new, and reminds one of the prehistoric reptiles. 1 Monkeys galore 

 and a fine group of Paradisiac. Man was not forgotten, and there 

 was a good sized collection of crania and face casts. The collec- 

 tion is largely due to the present director, and is confined to the 

 Dutch Indies. We went to call on Dr. Koningsberger and got 

 separated ; I found Dr. Koningsberger and with him visited the 

 Economic Museum where the rattans, bambus and other woods, 

 fibres, rubbers and other vegetable products, bambu hats and 

 mats, etc., were very choice and interesting. The herbarium had 

 a good, although rather old, collection of fruits, some exceedingly 



'In The Field of July 12, Mr. Boulenger directs attention to the descrip- 

 tion, by Mr. P. A. Ouwens in the Bulletin dujardin Botanique de Buitenzorg 

 for 191 2, of a gigantic monitor lizard from the Isle of Comodo, between Flores 

 and Sumbawa. The type specimen, described as Varanus komodensis, meas- 

 ured 7 ft. in length, but a second example is reported to have reached 13 ft., 

 and there are stories of others with a length of from 19 ft. to 23 ft. The 

 species appeares to be related to the North Australian / '. giganteus, which 

 grows to 7 or 8 ft., but it has the muzzle less pointed and brown in colour, 

 while the tail is proportionally shorter. That this giant of its tribe is dis- 

 tinct from all the other living representatives of its genus is certain; but Mr. 

 Boulenger suggests that it may prove to be inseparable from /'. priseus, of 

 the Pleistocene of Queensland, the vertebrse of which appear to indicate a 

 reptile at least as large as the biggest reported individuals of the Comodo 

 monitor. {Nature, July 24, 1913.) [291] 



