Miscellaneous. 315 



very tbnd of marine zoology, I have here more chance of getting 

 something new. I do more at present in Botany than in Natural 

 History, and am in correspondence with Sir W. J. Hooker, to whom 

 I have just sent 1300 species, also a collection of Cryptogams to 

 Mr. Mitten of Hurst Pierpoint, a pupil of the veteran Bower. I 

 have greatly improved my garden, which will soon be very beautiful. 

 I have in cultivation about 150 species of Orckidece alone, and a 

 vast number of epiphytal Ferns. Of Palms I have now 26 species 

 about my house ; among the most interesting plants here are the 

 Hoyas, of which we have an immense variety, and some among them 

 very beautiful. I have a large collection. Their cultivation is not 

 difficult ; it is only necessary to hang them up on my garden paliug, 

 made of split palm-wood, and there they very soon fix themselves 

 and are almost always in flower. I have managed to inoculate one 

 of my pupils with a taste for Natural History, and we have com- 

 menced making together a collection of insects. Nobody who has 

 not tried it knows the difficulty of keeping insects here from ants 

 while drying. There are some species which seem proof against 

 everything in the way of smell, except always balsam of copaiba ; that 

 never fails, but it is, after all, a perfume which one cannot well have 

 about one's house or person. One of the miners here, a rough 



Northumbrian, declared, with many expletives, that he was d d 



if he had not been three years in India and had seen a new sort of 

 ant every day ; and I think it quite possible that he could have done so. 

 A collection of them would be very interesting; but I have been deterred 

 by the difficulty of getting all the various states with any certainty 

 of their identity in species. Do you know whether there exists any 

 Monograph upon Ants ? I am sorry to say I do not get very many 

 Lice for you. I have told my hunter to collect them, and he has 

 brought me some; but he says it makes his shin creep to collect them, 

 — a feeling with which I must confess to have some sympathy, though 

 I have no doubt it is a weakness you have got over long ago. I 

 send two species — one from a large species of Heron akin to the Ad- 

 jutant, and the other from a musk-scented Sorex whose name I do 

 not yet know. There is a popular belief (whether true or not) that 

 the Oran Outan has no lice ; at least none have been found, and I 

 suppose they must be very rare. The number of letters which I 

 receive with requests for specimens from persons who have no claim 

 upon me you would scarcely believe. I receive applications from 

 literally the ends of the earth. I have now such from Calcutta, 

 Sydney, New York, and New Orleans, all of which lie still sleeping 

 in a bundle. I assure you it is not possible for me to answer all 

 such letters, much less to send what they ask for. One person, from 

 Germany, has had the coolness to ask me to furnish him with 

 vocabularies of as many as possible of the dialects of Borneo. Talking 

 of languages, Babel is reported to have been in Mesopotamia, but I 

 believe it is here ; I speak every day, more or less, four languages — 

 English, French, Malay, and Dyak, — and I ought to speak Dutch ; 

 we have also Javanese, Chinese, Bangenese, &c." 



From his zeal in the pursuit of Natural History, there is no doubt 



