Insect Hunting. 343 



in the morning. In this way I obtamecl on an average one 

 specimen a day for a long time, but moi'e than half of these 

 were females, and more than half the remainder worn or 

 broken specimens, so that I should not have obtained many 

 perfect males had I not found another station for them. 



As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man 

 Lahi with a net on purpose to search for them, as they had 

 also been seen at some flowering trees on the beach, and I 

 promised him half a day's wages extra for every good speci- 

 men he could catch. After a day or two he brought me two 

 very fair specimens, and told me he had caught them in the 

 bed of a large rocky stream that descends from the mountains 

 to the sea about a mile below the village. They flew down 

 this river, settling occasionally on stones and rocks in the 

 watei*, and he was obliged to wade up it or jump from rock to 

 rock to get at them. I went with him one day, but found that 

 the stream was far too rapid and the stones too slippery for 

 me to do any thing, so I left it entirely to him, and all the rest 

 of the time we staid in Batchian he used to be out all day, 

 generally bringing me one, and on good days two or three 

 specimens. I was thus able to bring away with me more than 

 a hundred of both sexes, including perhaps twenty very fine 

 males, though not more than five or six that were absolutely 

 perfect. 



My daily walk now led me, first about half a mile along the 

 sandy beach, then through a sago swamp over a causeway of 

 very shaky poles to the village of the Tomore people. Beyond 

 this was the forest with patches of new clearing, shady paths, 

 and a considerable quantity of felled timber. I found this a 

 very fair collecting-ground, especially for beetles. The fallen 

 trunks in the clearings abounded with golden Buprestidse and 

 curious Brenthidse and longicorns, while in the forest I found 

 abundance of the smaller Curculionidae, many longicorns, and 

 some fine green Carabida3. 



Butterflies were not abundant, but I obtained a few more 

 of the fine blue Papilio and a number of beautiful little Lycse- 

 nidffi, as well as a single specimen of the very rare Papilio 

 Wallacei, of which I had taken the hitherto unique specimen 

 in the Aru Islands. 



The most interesting birds I obtained here, were the beau- 



