60 [August, 



all visible at one time and place — I did not say tliat such scenes did 

 not absolutely exist, but that the rare exception was being described 

 as the rule : I have myself seen a combination of several of these items 

 more than once ; but if I had the books here I could pick out half-a- 

 dozen in which such scenes, including the birds down to the "glittering" 

 snakes, are printed as descriptions of what is to be seen almost daily 

 ill the tix)pics. 



Mr. Champion speaks of the forests of the Tierra Caliente of 

 Central America being more o]jen than those of the East, as pi'obably 

 accounting for the greater quantity of brightly coloured birds, 

 butterflies, &c., to be seen in them, and this is no doubt coi'rect : in 

 open rides in the forest into which the sun can shine there are 

 here a few Terias Junonia or Lycce^iidce nearly always to be found, 

 mostly common species, however, but it is the true primeval forest 

 that I wrote about. As soon as one enters the high forest here, one 

 might as well expect to find butterflies in Westminster Abbey, the 

 interior of w hieh is the best comparison of what the Bornean primeval 

 forest is like that I can bring before my home-staying readers. 



With regai'd to birds in the true forest, we have here in North 

 Borneo as many species of birds and as brightly hued ones as any 

 where in the world probably, the Pittas for instance, than which a 

 more gorgeoosly coloured group of birds does not exist, and of 

 which there are several species round this towai, but the number of 

 specimens is very small ; there is no lack of species of animals too, 

 but to see one is most rai*e (excejjt monkeys and 'squirrels, and these 

 generally near plantations). 



As an actual experience of the high forest I may give a recent 

 experience. I have just returned from having been a 10 days' journey 

 on business in it. I saw but one butterfly the whole time I was 

 actually in the forest, one of the Satyrndce with a pink tinge on the 

 under-side, and the usual rows of rings, it was flitting about in a space 

 a litle more open than usual, owing to a large tree having recently fallen 

 there ; of other things I saw a Cullassee monkey (/S*. rubiciindus), two 

 Kalawat (Gribbon, Jlylohates, sp. ?) mother and young, an otter^ and a 

 tortoise of some 50-lbs. weight, besides a few birds ; this is all. As 

 already written I was on business, had I been collecting I would have 

 kept to some old clearings close by, and there got plenty of butterflies 

 and birds amongst the deserted fruit trees. 



I notice that Mr. Champion writes that one does not find all the 

 gaily coloured birds, insects, &c., at once, still they are thei'c, and in a 

 residence of a few months one becomes ac(iuainled with them (the 



