334 A NATULALIST'S WAXDEIilXGS 



CHAPTER YL 



SOJOUEN IN TiiiOE-LAL'T — contiuiied. 



Natural history — Flora — Disaster to Herbarium — Fauna — Mimicking birds 

 — Insccts^Fever and failure of supplies — Anxious waiting for steamer 

 Arrival of SS. Amhoina — Leave Timor-laut for Amboina. 



Of the natural history of Timor-laiit, about which almost 

 nothing was known before our yisit, I have been able, to a 

 considerable extent, to fill up the blanks in our knowledge. 

 . In some places the low shrubby under-forest is so dense as 

 to be almost impenetrable on account of its spiny character, 

 while in other parts the woods are open below. The trees were, 

 some of them, of considerable height, but of no great thick- 

 ness, and but sparsely distributed. The largest I obserA'cd 

 were Sterculias and fig-trees of the genus Vrostigma. The 

 former are common and, in throwing out their flowers in 

 advance of their foliai^e, their crowns form enormous bright 

 - scarlet bosses and are the most characteristic objects in the 

 landscape. Doubtless they occur all along the coast, and very 

 likely suggested the term '^ brilliant '' used by Captain Stanley 

 in his description, already quoted, of the vegetation about 

 Oliliet. This tree {Stereiilia foetida) is probably a near 

 relative of, if it is not identical with, the Fire-tree of Aus- 

 tralia, which has attracted so much admiration there. Legumi- 

 nous trees and shrubs were very abundantly represented; and 

 with myrtles, pandans, palms, euphorbias, Malvacese, figs, 

 and Apocynaceous trees, formed the bulk of the vegetation. 

 Under these a green carpet of Commelyna {C. midifora) 

 hides the rough and knobbly coral. Casuarinas and Cycads, 

 which, both in Timor and Aru, form so strikinsf a feature of 

 the vegetation, and j)hyl lode-bearing Acacias w^th the Euca- 

 lyptus and Melaleuca, which characterise the Australian flora, 

 were singularly conspicious by their absence in the districts 



