164: LOMBOCK, 



breakfast we went out to explore, taking guns and insect-net. 

 We reached some low hills which seemed to offer the most 

 favorable ground, passing over swamps, sandy flats overgrown 

 with coarse sedges, and through pastures and cultivated 

 grounds, finding, however, very little in the way of either 

 birds or insects. On our way we passed one or two human 

 skeletons, inclosed within a small bamboo fence, with the 

 clothes, pillow, mat, and betel-box of the unfortunate individ- 

 ual, who bad been either murdered or executed. Returning 

 to the house, we found a Balinese chief and his followers on 

 a visit. Those of higher rank sat on chairs, the others squat- 

 ted on the floor. The chief very coolly asked for beer and 

 brandy, and helped himself and his followers, apparently more 

 out of curiosity than any thing else as regards the beer, for it 

 seemed very distasteful to them, while they drank the brandy 

 in tumblers with much relish. 



Returning to Ampanam, I devoted myself for some days 

 to shooting the birds of the neighborhood. The fine fig-trees 

 of the avenues, where a market was held, were tenanted by 

 superb orioles (Oriolus broderpii) of a rich orange color, and 

 peculiar to this island and the adjacent ones of Sumbawa and 

 Flores. All round the town were abundance of the curious 

 Tropidorhynchus timoriensis, allied to the friar-bird of Aus- 

 tralia. They are here called " quaich-quaich," from their 

 strange loud voice, which seems to repeat these words in vari- 

 ous and not unmelodious intonations. 



Every day boys were to be seen walking along the roads 

 and by the hedges and ditches, catching dragon-flies with 

 bird-lime. They carry a slender stick, with a few twigs at 

 the end well anointed, so that the least touch captures the in- 

 sect, whose wings are pulled off before it is consigned to a 

 small basket. The dragon-flies are so abundant at the time of 

 the rice flowering that thousands are soon caught in this way. 

 The bodies are fried in oil, with onions and preserved shrimps, 

 or sometimes alone, and are considered a great delicacy. In 

 Borneo, Celebes, and many other islands, the larvse of bees and 

 wasps are eaten, either alive as pulled out of the cells, or fried 

 like the dragon-flies. In the Moluccas the grubs of the palm- 

 beetles (Calandra) are regularly brought to mai'ket in bam- 

 boos, and sold for food ; and many of the great horned Lamel- 



