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The Aru Islands, 



Those curious little beetles, the Brenthidae, were very 

 abundant in Aru. The females have a pointed rostrum, with 

 which they bore deep holes in the bark of dead trees, often 

 burying the rostrum up to the eyes, and in these holes deposit 

 their eggs. The males are larger, and have the rostrum di- 

 lated at the end, and sometimes terminating in a good-sized 

 pair of jaws. I once saw two males lighting together ; each 

 had a fore-leg laid across the neck of the other, and the ros- 

 trum bent quite in an attitude of defiance, and looking most 

 ridiculous. Another time, two were fighting for a female, 

 who stood close by busy at her boring. They pushed at each 

 other with their rostra, and clawed and thumped, aj)parently 



MALE BBENTHID^ {LeptorJiynchus angustatus) fighting. 



in the greatest rage, although their coats of mail must have 

 saved both from injury. The small one, however, soon ran 

 away, acknowleging himself vanquished. In most Coleoptera 

 the female is larger than the male, and it is therefoi'e interest- 

 ing, as bearing on the question of sexual selection, that in 

 this case, as in the stag-beetles, where the males fight together, 

 they should be not only better armed, but also much larger 

 than the females. 



Just as we were going away, a handsome tree, allied to 

 Erythrina, was in blossom, showing its masses of large crim- 

 son flowers scattered here and there about the forest. Could 

 it have been seen from an elevation, it would have had a fine 

 efiect ; from below I could only catch sight of masses of 



