48 Borneo. 



two miles distant. Besides this, sawpits were established at 

 various points in the jungle, and large trees were felled, to be 

 cut up into beams and planks. For hundreds of miles in 

 every direction a magnificent forest extended over plain and 

 mountain, rock and morass, and I arrived at the spot just as 

 the rains began to diminish and the daily sunshine to in- 

 crease ; a time which I have always found the most favorable 

 season for collecting. The number of openings and sunny 

 places and of pathways were also an attraction to wasps and 

 butterflies ; and by paying a cent each for all insects that 

 were brought me, I obtained from the Dyaks and the China- 

 men many fine locusts and Phasmidaj, as well as numbers of 

 handsome beetles. 



When I arrived at the mines, on the 14th of March, I had 

 collected in the four preceding months 320 difierent kinds of 

 beetles. In less than a fortnight I had doubled this number, 

 an average of about 24 new species every day. On one day 

 I collected 76 diiferent kinds, of which 34 were new to me. 

 By the end of April I had mpre than a thousand species, and 

 they then went on increasing at a slower rate ; so that I ob- 

 tained altogether in Borneo about two thousand distinct 

 kinds, of which all but a"bout a hundred w^ere collected at 

 this place, and on scarcely more than a square mile of ground. 

 The most numerous and most interesting groups of beetles 

 were the longicorns and Ehynchophora, both pre-eminently 

 wood-feeders. The former, characterized by their graceful 

 forms and long antennse, were especially numerous, amount- 

 ing to nearly three hundred species, nine-tenths of which were 

 entirely new, and many of them remarkable for their large 

 size, strange forms, and beautiful coloring. The latter corre- 

 spond to our weevils and allied groups, and in the tropics are 

 exceedingly numerous and varied, often swarming upon dead 

 timber, so that I sometimes obtained fifty or sixty* different 

 kinds in a day. My Bornean collections of this group ex- 

 ceeded five hundred species. 



My collection of butterflies was not large ; but I obtained 

 some rare and very handsome insects, the most remarkable 

 being the Ornithoptera Brookeana, one of the most elegant 

 species known. This beautiful creature has very long and 

 pointed wings, almost resembling a sphinx moth in shape. 



