xxii] CELEBES, THE MOLUCCAS, ETC. 379 



would thus far receive support. I regret that your time was 

 not more equally divided between the north and south banks, 

 but I suppose you found the south so much more productive 

 in new and fine things. . . . 



" I am here making what I intend to be my last collections, 

 but am doing very little in insects, as it is the wet season and 

 all seems dead. I find in those districts where the seasons 

 are strongly contrasted the good collecting time is very 

 limited — only about a month or two at the beginning of the 

 dry, and a few weeks at the commencement of the rains. It 

 is now two years since I have been; able to get any beetles, 

 owing to bad localities and bad weather, so I am becoming 

 disgusted. When I do find a good place it is generally very 

 good, but such are dreadfully scarce. In Java I had to go 

 forty miles in the eastern part and sixty miles in the western 

 to reach a bit of forest, and then I got scarcely anything. 

 Here I had to come a hundred miles inland, by Palembang, 

 and though in the very centre of Eastern Sumatra, the forest 

 is only in patches, and it is the height of the rains, so I get 

 nothing. A longicorn is a rarity, and I suppose I shall not 

 have as many species in two months as I have obtained in 

 three or four days in a really good locality. I am getting, 

 however, some sweet little blue butterflies {Lyccenidce), which 

 is the only thing that keeps up my spirits." 



The letter to my friend Silk will be, perhaps, a little more 

 amusing, and perhaps not less instructive. 



■ Lobo Roman, Sumatra, December 22, 1861. 



"My dear George, 



" Between eight and nine years ago, when we were 

 concocting that absurd book, 'Travels on the Amazon and 

 Rio Negro,' you gave me this identical piece of waste paper 

 with sundry others, and now having scribbled away my last 

 sheet of 'hot-pressed writing,' and being just sixty miles 

 from another, I send you back your gift, with interest ; so 

 you see that a good action, sooner or later, find its sure 

 reward. 



