24:0 Celebes. 



wings, and beautifully marked with spots or masses of satiny 

 yellow on a black ground, wheel through the thickets with a 

 strong sailing flight. About the damp places are swarms of 

 the beautiful blue-banded Papilios, miletus and telephus, the 

 superb golden-green P. macedon, and the rare little swallow- 

 tail Paj^ilio rhesus, of all of which, though very active, I suc- 

 ceeded in capturing fine series of si^ecimens, 



I have rarely enjoyed myself more than during my residence 

 here. As I sat taking my coffee at six in the morning, rare 

 birds would often be seen on some tree close by, when I would 

 hastily sally out in my slippers, and perhaps secure a j^rize I 

 had been seeking after for weeks. The great hornbills of 

 Celebes (Buceros cassidix) would often come with loud-flap- 

 ping wings and perch upon a lofty tree just in front of me ; 

 and the black baboon-monkeys (Cynopithecus nigrescens) oft- 

 en stared down in astonishment at such an intrusion into their 

 domains ; while at night herds of wild jDigs roamed about the 

 house, devouring refuse, and obliging us to jout away every 

 thing eatable or breakable from our little cooking-house. A 

 few minutes' search on the fallen trees around my house at 

 sunrise and sunset would often produce me more beetles than 

 I would meet with in a day's collecting, and odd moments could 

 be made valuable, which when living in villages or at a distance 

 from the forest are inevitably wasted. Where the sugar- 

 palms were dripping with sap flies congregated in immense 

 numbers, and it was by spending half an hour at these when I 

 had the time to spare that I obtained the finest and most re- 

 markable collection of this group of insects that I have ever 

 made. 



Then what delightful hours I passed wandering up and 

 down the dry river-courses, full of water-holes and rocks and 

 fallen trees, and overshadowed by magnificent vegetation ! I 

 soon got to know every hole and rock and stump, and came 

 up to each with cautious step and bated breath to see what 

 treasures it would produce. At one place I would find a lit- 

 tle crowd of the rare butterfly (Tachyris zarinda), which 

 would rise up at ray aj)proach, and display their vivid orange 

 and cinnabar-red wings, while among them would flutter a 

 few of the fine blue-banded Papilios, Where leafy branches 

 hung over the gully, I might expect to find a grand Omithop- 



