Birds near Macassar. 223 



also produces a coarse black fibre used for cordage. That 

 necessary of life, the bamboo, has also been abundantly plant- 

 ed. In such places I found a good many birds, among which 

 were the fine cream-colored pigeon (Carpophaga luctuosa) 

 and the rare blue-headed roller (Coracias temmincki), which 

 has a most discordant voice, and generally goes in paii'S, fly- 

 ino" from tree to tree, and exhibiting while at rest that all-in- 

 a-heap appearance and jerking motion of the head and tail 

 which are so characteristic of the great fissirostral group to 

 which it belongs. From this habit alone, the kingfishers, bee- 

 eaters, rollers, trogons, and South American puff-birds might 

 be grouped together by a person who had observed them in 

 a state of nature, but who had never had an ojiportunity of 

 examming their form and structure in detail. Thousands of 

 crows, rather smaller than our rook, keep up a constant caw- 

 ing in these plantations ; the curious Avood-swallows (Artami), 

 which closely resemble swallows in their habits and flight, 

 but dificr much in form and structure, twitter from the tree- 

 tops; while a lyre-tailed drongo-shrike, with ^brilliant black 

 plumage and milk-white eyes, continually deceives the natu- 

 ralist by the variety of its unmelodious notes. 



In the more shady parts butterflies were tolerably abun- 

 dant ; the most common being species of Euplsea and Danais, 

 which frequent gardens and shrubberies, and, owing to their 

 weak flight, are easily captured. A beautiful pale blue-and- 

 black butterfly, which flutters along near the ground among 

 the thickets, and settles occasionally upon flowers, was one 

 of the most striking ; and scarcely less so was one with a 

 rich orange band on a blackish ground: these both belong 

 to the Pieridse, the group that contains our common white 

 butterflies, although diflering so much from them in appear- 

 ance. Both were quite new to European naturalists.^ Now 

 and then I extended my Avalks some miles farther to the only 

 patch of true forest I could find, accompanied by my two 

 boys with guns and insect-net. We used to start early, tak- 

 ing our breakfast with us, and eating it wherever we could 

 find shade and water. At such times my Macassar boys 

 would put a minute fragment of rice and meat or fish on a 

 leaf, and lay it on a stone or stump as an offering to the deity 



' Tlie former has been named Eronia tritrea, the latter Tachyris ithome. 



