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soil is planted with maize and other cultivated plants, which, however, yield but a 

 poor crop. There is no fresh water on Binongka — only a brackish, objectionable fluid 

 in the cavities of the coral rocks. 



Tomia is a little more comfortable, there being at least some smooth and clean 

 sandbanks on the coast, and the coral rock is a little more covered with soil. 

 Nevertheless the thick population cannot obtain sufficient food from the land. 



Kalidupa (Kaledoepa, Kadupa) is more fertile, being covered almost all over, 

 even on the mountain-tops, with fertile soil. Although forests have almost entirely 

 disappeared, and vast stretches are covered with the miiform long stiff alang-alang 

 grass (Imperata arundinaoea), Mr. Kiihn believes that at the right season some 

 good Lepidoptera might be found ; but he had to leave Kalidupa after a short stay, 

 the time which he was permitted to remain having elapsed. 



The islands called IMattheus and Velthoen, to the east of the above-named ones, 

 are uninhabited, but said to be full of birds. They were not visited. 



The inhabitants of the Tukang-Besi Islands are of a very light colour, probably 

 of Buginese origin. Most of the men and all the women had never seen a white 

 man in their lives, and generally ran away to a distance of over a hundred yards. 

 Mr. Kiihn, however, suspects that this fear was partly due to the Butonese officials, 

 who were overbearing and unkind to a degree, and did what they could to prevent 

 Mr. Kiihn's getting into contact with the natives. 



No zoological collector has ever before touched the Tukang-Besi Islands, and 

 all honom- is due to !Mr. Heinrich Kiihn for having brought together, under most 

 inconvenient and trying circumstances, the very interesting collection hereafter 

 enumerated. 



From the natm-e of the islands, which consist apparently of geologically young 

 coral rock, being almost or entirely devoid of old forest, very thickly populated, and 

 highly cultivated, a very rich fauna cannot be expected, and, in fact, Mr. Kiihn calls 

 it very poor. Many otherwise ubiquitous genera of birds of the Eastern Archipelago 

 are indeed absent. 



Buton has also remained ornithologically unknown, though it appears that 

 Labillardfere, one of the naturalists who accompanied D'Entreoasteaux's expedition 

 in search of the lost ship La Perouse, collected some birds on Buton or Muna. 

 D'Entrecasteaux passed through the Strait of Buton, between Buton and Muna ; 

 eighteen days were spent in making the passage, and parties lauded on both islands. 

 On either of them they must have collected a number of birds, such as Streptocitta 

 alhicoUis, Gaszola t>/pica and others, which were partly, through some carelessness 

 in labelling, attributed to New Caledonia. (Of. Meyer & Wiglesworth, B. Cdeheis ii. 

 pp. 576. 584.) 



Altogether Mr. Kiihn sent from his expedition seventy-three species, mostly in 

 large series. Of these nine or ten are migrants from the north, the rest resident 

 birds. While the birds from Buton are — as far as the very small collection from 

 that island shows — practically the same as those of South Celebes, the birds from 

 the Tukang-Besi Islands show on the whole a very different aspect. Though mainly 

 the same as tho.se of Celebes, or closely allied, there is among them also a fair mixture 

 of Southern forms, just as we find it on Djampea, Kalao, and even, to .some degree, on 

 Saleyer. It is, to me, most strange that a number of forms (^AsLur toninutus -wdUacei, 

 Baza 8ubcridata reinivardli, Tanygwdhais iw&jalorhijnchos, C'arpophaija conciuna) 

 inhabit the islands quite close, sometimes all around, north and south of Celebes, 

 but avoid the mainland, if we may call it so. The birds from Wantjee, Kaliduija 



