98 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



lull which seemed to mark the end of the storm. 

 The glass was still very low, but I paid no attention 

 to its warning and put out for Samarai. We were 

 barely out when the wind came down, as solid as a 

 wall, from the South- West, and the boat went almost 

 on her beam ends. I tried to lower the mainsail, but 

 the throat halyards jammed, and it seemed as though 

 we were doomed. But my New Guinea boy, good 

 sailor that he was, shinned up the mast and let slip 

 the sheet and we were safe. 



My notes at Milne Bay this year (1899) were mostly 

 regarding the habits of butterflies. I had taken one 

 perfect male of Ornithoptera meridionalis, also one 

 male specimen of the large blue butterfly (Orgyris 

 meeki) which pupates under the ground at the 

 trunk of the food-plant (the tree on which the 

 mistletoe lives). It is much larger than any Queens- 

 land species, and has a much longer tail. The 

 collection of lepidoptera far excelled the Fergusson 

 Island collections. There was one species of Cyrestis, 

 collected on very high ground, with a comparatively 

 long tail. The underside had black stripes running 

 to a point similar to some species of Papilio, and 

 the underside or hindwing was black with greenish- 

 copper markings. Then I got two specimens of a 

 small green Aniherea, about two-and-a-half inches 

 across, and another new (to me) species of choco- 

 late Charagia. In all, the collection of lepidoptera 

 amounted to about 20,000 specimens of such things 



