362 Ceeam. 



Here I noticed one of the smallest and most elegant tree-ferns 

 I had ever seen, the stem being scarcely thicker than my thumb, 

 yet reaching a height of fifteen or twenty feet. I also caught 

 a new butterfly of the genus Pieris, and a magnificent female 

 specimen of Papilio gambrisius, of which I had hitherto only 

 found the males, which are smaller and very different in col- 

 or. Descending the other side of the ridge, by a very steep 

 path, we reached another river at a spot which is about the 

 centre of the island, and which was to be our resting-place for 

 two or three days. In a couple of hours my men had built a 

 little sleeping-shed for me, about eight feet by four, with a 

 bench of split jDoles, they themselves occupying two or three 

 smaller ones, which had been put up by former passengers. 



The river here was about twenty yards wide, running over 

 a pebbly and sometimes a rocky bed, and bordered by steep 

 hills, with occasionally flat swampy spots between their base 

 and the stream. The whole country was one dense, unbroken, 

 and very damp and gloomy virgin forest. Just at our resting- 

 place there was a little bush-covered island in the middle of 

 the channel, so that the oi^ening in the forest made by the 

 river was wider than usual, and allowed a few gleams of sun- 

 shine to penetrate. Here there were several handsome butter- 

 flies flying about, the finest of which, however, escaped me, and 

 I never saw it again during my stay. In the two days and 

 a half which we remained here, I wandered almost all day up 

 and down the stream, searching after butterflies, of which I 

 got, in all, fifty or sixty specimens, with several species quite 

 new to me. There were many others which I saw only once, 

 and did not capture, causing me to regret that there was no 

 village in these interior valleys where I could stay a month. 

 In the early part of each morning I went out with my gun in 

 search of birds, and two of my men were out almost all day 

 after deer ; but we were all equally unsuccessful, getting abso- 

 lutely nothing the whole time we were in the forest. The 

 only good bird seen was the fine Amboyna lory, but these were 

 always too high to shoot ; besides this, the great Moluccan 

 hornbill, which I did not want, was almost the only bird met 

 with. I saw not a single ground-thrush, or kingfisher, or 

 pigeon ; a.nd, in fact, have never been in a forest so utterly 

 desert of animal life as this appeared to be. Even in all other 



