80 A. A. W. HUBRECHT. 
the outcome of this at my disposal when I arrived in Batavia 
in November, 1890. 
In this way matters were made easy for me, and I could 
form a provisional opinion as to the question in which part of 
the Archipelago I would probably find the most favorable 
collecting spots. 
Only certain general data were available as to the habitat of 
the above-named genera of mammals, but detailed accounts 
about their comparative rarity, by which certain regions might 
at the outset be considered as less favorable than others, were 
deficient, as were also reliable data about their time of repro- 
duction, &c. 
Moreover, different aspects of the question must be kept 
sight of. Suppose the animals to be numerous in a region 
without European inhabitants, I could not then expect a rich 
harvest. Similarly it might be presumed that in parts where 
the population is scarce, the inhabitants could hardly give any 
important aid in the collecting of a great number of speci- 
mens. 
On the contrary, it was most probable that in strongly 
populated districts where a large proportion of the soil is culti- 
vated, the mammals in question would be very rare or extinct. 
It was, in short, unavoidable to spend the months of my stay 
in India in as considerable a number of different places as 
possible. In this way I was able to enter into personal con- 
nection with very many who might be willing to continue the 
collecting business even after my departure. For this purpose 
I left behind me, wherever I had succeeded in enlisting co- 
operators, printed instructions, chemicals, glass tubes, &c., as 
well as cash for the payment of premiums to the natives by 
whom the collecting of the live material was to be done. 
This method of going to work must appear to be a tedious 
and slow one. At the same time it was in the commencement 
most undoubtedly disheartening. Still I have conscientiously 
applied it wherever I have stayed, after generally demonstrat- 
ing by means of more common animals than those I was in 
search of how the extirpation of the uterus had to be effected, 
