210 Mr. 8. B. J. Skertchly on the 
heavy night dews have evaporated and the jungle is as dry 
as it ever gets in this hot-house climate. ‘They increase in 
numbers, until about ten or eleven o’clock a maximum is 
reached, and a lull sets in for a couple of hours, though there 
are still many about. From one till two o’clock they swarm 
again, and then gradually decrease in numbers, until soon after 
four most of them have gone, and the crepuscular forms like 
Melanitis and Amathusia appear soon after. A passing cloud 
or shower causes a sudden disappearance of nearly all the 
species, though a few brave the gloom and rain. 
The most persistent species I know is Ornithoptera flavi- 
collis, which is up earliest, retires latest, scorns the clouds, 
and may be seen, dripping wet, lazily flapping along in a 
smart shower. The Hestias emulate it with considerable 
success, and some of the Danais genus are very early risers, 
but pitch during cloud and rain, though often on exposed 
shrubs, where; with folded wings, they patiently get wet. 
The brig! it brown Pandita senora is another early riser, flies 
low, and delights to bask in the early morning sun, and in 
the afternoon mounts high like the Huplewas and Ideopsis. 
North Borneo, especially in its eastern part, where my 
observations were chiefly made, is practically one unbroken 
virgin forest, intersected by innumerable creeks and small 
streams and some fine rivers, such as the Labuk, Kinaba- 
tangau, and Segama. The average height of the forest is 
between 150 and 200 feet, and, save where a tree has fallen, 
the sun’s rays never penetrate, and all is shade, warm, moist, 
and equable. On the banks of the rivers and their larger 
tributaries sunshine is abundant, while over the smaller creeks 
the meeting branches form a canopy almost as dense as in 
the forest itself. Save along the larger rivers and on the 
coast there are no inhabitants, and even there the native 
clearings are very small. Hven around the capital, Sanda- 
kan, virgin forest begins within a mile, and in the forest there 
are no clearings whatever, and nature, untouched by man, can 
be contemplated in its purity. 
But in the forest depths butterflies are rare, and the fol- 
lowing genera alone supply true forest species, that never 
seek the sunny river-banks or bright glades and clearings :— 
NYMPHALIDZ. 
Ragadia. Thaumantis. 
Neorina. Clerome. 
Amathusia. ~  Xanthoteenia. 
ERYCINID,. 
Abisara. 
