Birds and Butterflies. 123 



The lower slopes of the mountains in Java possess such a 

 delightful climate and luxuriant soil, living is so cheap and 

 life and property are so secure, that a considerable number 

 of Europeans who have been engaged in Government seiwice, 

 settle permanently in the country instead of returning to 

 Europe. They are scattered everywhere throughout the 

 more accessible parts of the island, and tend greatly to the 

 gradual improvement of the native population, and to the 

 continued peace and prosperity of the whole country. 



Twenty miles beyond Buitenzorg the post-road passes 

 over the Megamendong Mountain, at an elevation of about 

 4500 feet. The country is finely mountainous, and there is 

 much virgin forest still left upon the hills, together with some 

 of the oldest coffee-plantations in Java, where the plants have 

 attained almost the dimensions of forest-trees. About 500 

 feet below the summit level of the pass there is a road-keep- 

 er's hut, half of which I hired for a fortnight, as the country 

 looked promising for making collections. I almost immedi- 

 ately found that the productions of West Java were remark- 

 ably different from those of the eastern part of the island, and 

 that all the more remarkable and characteristic Javanese 

 birds and insects were to be found here. On the very first 

 day, "my hunters obtained for me the elegant yellow and green 

 trogon (Harpactes Reinwardti), the gorgeous little minivet 

 fly-catcher (Pericrocotus miniatus), which looks like a flame 

 of fire as it flutters among the bushes, and the rare and curi- 

 ous black and crimson oriole (Analcipus sanguinolentus), all 

 of them species which are found only in Java, and even seem 

 to be confined to its western portion. In a week I obtained 

 no less than twenty-four species of birds which I had not 

 found in the east of the island, and in a fortnight this num- 

 ber increased to forty species, almost all of which are pecul- 

 iar to the Javanese fauna. Large and handsome butterflies 

 were also tolerably abundant. In dai-k ravines, and occa- 

 sionally on the roadside, I captured the superb Papilio arjuna, 

 whose wings seem powdered with grains of golden green, 

 condensed into bands and moon-shaped spots ; while the ele- 

 gantly-formed Papilio coon was sometimes to be found flut- 

 tering slowly along the shady pathways (see figure at page 

 139), One day a boy brought me a butterfly between his 



