The Crcesus Butterfly. ■ 341 



enables them to live well. They are almost the only people 

 in the Archipelago who eat the great fruit-eating bats called 

 by us " flying foxes." These ugly creatures are considered a 

 great delicacy, and are much sought after. At about, the be- 

 ginning of the year they come in large flocks to eat fruit, and 

 congregate during the day on some small islands in the bay, 

 hanging by thousands on the trees, especially on dead ones. 

 They can then be easily caught or knocked down with sticks, and 

 are brought home by basketfuls. They require to be care- 

 fully prepared, as the skin and fur has a rank and powerful 

 foxy odor ; but they are generally cooked with abundance of 

 spices and condiments, and are really very good eating, some- 

 thing hke hare. The Orang Sirani are good cooks, having a 

 much greater variety of savory dishes than the Malays. Here 

 they live chiefly on sago as bread, with a little rice occasional- 

 ly, and abundance of vegetables and fruit. 



It is a curious fact that everywhere in the East where the 

 Portuguese have mixed with the native races they have be- 

 come darker in color than either of the parent stocks. This 

 is the case almost always with these "Oi-ang Sirani" in the 

 Moluccas, and with the Portuguese of Malacca. The reverse 

 is the case in South America, where the mixture of the Por- 

 tuguese or Brazilian with the Indian produces the " Mamelu- 

 co," who is not unfi-equently lighter than either parent, and 

 always lighter than the Indian. The women at Batchian, al- 

 though generally fairer than the men, are coarse in features, 

 and very far inferior in beauty to the mixed Dutch-Malay 

 girls, or even to many pure Malays. 



The part of the village in which I resided was a grove of 

 cocoa-nut-trees, and at night, when the dead leaves were some- 

 times collected together and burnt, the effect was most mag- 

 nificent — the tail stems, the fine crowns of foliage, and the im- 

 mense fruit-clusters, being brilliantly illuminated against a 

 dark sky, and appearing like a fairy palace supported on a hun- 

 dred columns, and groined over with leafy arches. The cocoa- 

 nut-tree, when well grown, is certainly the prince of palms 

 both for beauty and utility. 



During my very first walk into the forest at Batchian, I 

 had seen sitting on a leaf out of reach, an immense butterfly 

 of a dark color marked with white and yellow spots. I could 



