91 • [September, 



coaled ship, and gave leave to the crew, so we managed to make out eight days here 

 I had heard a great deal about Tahiti, and may say that, although my expectations 

 were raised very high, I was not in the least disappointed. The island may be said 

 to consist of two peninsulas, each composed of a huge mass of mountains, which, in 

 the main peninsula, or Tahiti proper, attains an elevation of 7321 feet. All round 

 the shore is a belt of low flat land, covered with a forest of cocoa-nut and fruit trees : 

 then come smooth steejj hills, seamed with deep ravines, and covered with ferns and 

 wild guava bushes, which latter are quite a pest, covering many square miles of 

 country, and bearing abundance of large and delicious fruit, which, however, is sel- 

 dom or never gathered, being allowed to rot on the ground in tons. Above these 

 hills, the mountains are rugged, and broken to an extraordinary degree, and are 

 covered with dense and most beautiful forest, composed in a large pai't of tree-ferns, 

 which I have seen as much as forty feet high ; wild bananas or plantains ("faes," as 

 they are called here) also form a very large portion of the vegetation, growing in 

 patches of many acres in extent. Papiete is a very pretty little town, or, rather, 

 village, but it is so hidden among trees as to be scarcely visible from the anchorage. 

 An excellent macadamized road runs all round the island (100 miles) close to the 

 sea, and is called (why, I know not) the Broom Eoad. I had several very pleasant 

 excursions on shore, on one occasion getting up into the mountain forests to a height 

 of more than 3000 feet. Insects were a good deal more abundant than in the 

 Marquesas, as well as in greater variety. Besides Danais Archipptis and Diadema 

 Bolina (the latter very large and fine), I saw and obtained at least five other butter- 

 flies, all more or less plentiful. These were, the large and handsome Satyrid, Cyllo 

 Leda, which haunts shady places, and is not often taken in good order ; a fine, white- 

 spotted, black Evjdoea ; a little fulvous and brown insect, nearly related to Argynnis, 

 &c., which, I think, belongs to the genus Atella (the pupa, which I found in plenty 

 on broad-leafed plants in the high forest region, is the prettiest I have ever seen, 

 being bright clear gi-een with golden sfiots and streaks, and coppery-red bands across 

 the back) ; lastly, two species of Polyommatus, one being nearly related to, perhaps 

 identical with, our P. bcBticus. A very handsome species of Macroqlossa, very like 

 our British M. stellatarum, is common at heliotrope flowers, &c., but is very hard to 

 obtain in good order; however, I found four larvae, and succeeded in rearing them 

 all to the perfect state. I heard a great deal from the residents about large Sphinges 

 entering their houses at night, but the only one I received was unrecognisable 

 through having flown into a glass of beer ! The moths were much the same as at 

 the Marquesas, but one or two nice fresh things turned up, mostly, however, of 

 small size. I got a few Coleoptera among the higher woods, as well as a good series 

 of a very fine species of Clytus, which I found in plenty running and flying about 

 some dry logs of Hibiscus just outside Papiete, but on the whole this Order appeared 

 to be but jx)orly represented. Some very nice land-shells (mostly small Biilimi) 

 occurred to me on foliage at a considerable elevation, and I also obtained a pretty 

 good lot of sea-shells ; so that, on the whole, my stay at Tahiti was by no means 

 unprofitable. 



We left Tahiti on April Gth, for the neighbouring island of Eimeo or Moorea, 

 twenty miles distant, and anchored in Papetoai Bay, a well sheltered and exceedingly 

 pretty harbour. The general character of Eimeo is the same as Tahiti, but the 



