130 A NATURALIST'S WA 



wiivside trees to the dense forest sliade ; Ithododytes diardi, 

 one of the cuckoo family, with a light green bill, and velvet 

 scarlet eye-wattle ; and green and black barbets^ whose peculiar 

 and incessant cries filled the air. 



la the open paths and sunny roads I netted scarlet Pieridw 

 {Appias nero), often flying in flocks of over a score, exactly 

 matching in colour the fallen leaves, which it was amusing to 

 observe how often thev mistook for one of their own fello^vs 

 at rest, and to watch the futile attentions of an amorous male 

 towards such a leaf moving slightly in the Avind. Among the 

 Pieridwy it has been said by Mr. Wallace that the male is as 

 a rule more conspicuaus than the female; but in this genus 

 Appias — with the exception of a little more black in the female, 

 the sexes of Appias ntro are alike— the female is really, fre- 

 quently, more conspicuously marked, and attracts the eye on 

 the wing quite as readily as the male. Nearly all the species 

 of CaUilryas and CatopsiJia, as Mr. Butler has pointed out to 



me in specimens in the British Museum, have the females more 

 cons2)icuously marked than the males. Hehomoia gJaiicippe 

 and its allies may be instanced, and the genera Ganoris and 

 Belenois^ as for example B. eiidoxia and B. theora, in the latter 

 of which only the female has the front wings orange. 



From Gedong-tatahan I moved a little further west to Kotta- 

 djawa. All along the way crowds of Buceros birds kept con- 

 stantly flying overhead with their peculiar noisy scream and 

 the breeze-like whirr of their wings, while from far in the w^oods 

 came the softer koo-ow of the Argus pheasants, than which, 

 among all the feathered tribes, scarcely any bird is lovelier. 

 In Sumatra, the Argus occupies the place held in Java by the 

 Peacock —a bird belonging to the same natural family — which 

 seen in its native wildness is unsurpassed for brilliancy of 

 colour and decorative appendages, but its ornamentation is too 

 gaudy for long contemplation; while in the case of the Argus 

 Pheasant one may admire feather by feather, and the same 

 feather again and again, and daily see new beauties. The tail 

 of the peacock is formed by a great development of what is 

 technically known as the upper tail coverts, while that of the 

 Argus pheasant is formed chiefly by an enormous elongation 

 of the two tail quills and of the secondary wing feathers, no 

 two of which are exactly the same; and the closer they are 



