342 Batchian. 



not capture it as it flew away high up into the forest, but I at 

 once saw that it was a female of a new species of Ornithoptera, 

 or, " bird-winged butterfly," the pride of the Eastern tropics. 

 I was very anxious to get it and to find the male, which in this 

 genus is always of extreme beauty. During the two succeed- 

 '.ng months I only saw it once again, and shortly afterward I 

 saw the male flying high in the air at the mining village. I 

 had begun to despair of ever getting a specimen, as it seemed 

 so rare and wild; till one day, about the beginning of Janu- 

 ary, I found a beautiful shrub with large white leafy bracts 

 and yellow flowers, a species of Mussaenda, and saw one of 

 these noble insects hovering over it, but it was too quick for 

 me, and flew away. The next day I went again to the same 

 shrub and succeeded in catching a female, and the day after a 

 fine male. I found it to be as I had expected, a perfectly new 

 and most magnificent species, and one of the most gorgeously 

 colored butterflies in the world. Fine specimens of the male 

 are more than seven inches across the wings, which are vel- 

 vety black and fiery orange, the latter color replacing the green 

 of the allied species. The beauty and brilliancy of this insect 

 are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can understand the 

 intense excitement I experienced when I at length captured it. 

 On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, 

 my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, 

 and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in 

 apprehension of immediate death. I had a headache the rest 

 of the day, so great was the excitement produced by what will 

 appear to most people a very inadequate cause. 



I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, 

 but this grand capture determined me to stay on till I obtain- 

 ed a good series of the new butterfly, which I have since 

 named Ornithoptera croesus. The Musssenda bush was an ad- 

 mirable place, which I could visit every day on my way to the 

 forest ; and as it was situated in a dense thicket of shrubs and 

 creejDers, I set my man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so 

 that I could easily get at any insect that might visit it. Aft- 

 erward, finding that it was often necessaiy to wait some time 

 there, I had a little seat put up under a tree by the side of it, 

 where I came every day to eat my lunch, and thus had half an 

 hour's watching about noon, besides a chance as I passed it 



