ACULEATE HTMENOPTERA AND ICHNEUMONIDJE. 287 



which no less than 100 were previously undescribed. My besb 

 collecting-grounds were the half-dried beds of mountain-streams 

 and the paths in the forest. I owe much of my success here to 

 having had a house built in a patch of forest on the slope of a 

 hill, where I could utilize every spare hour, and often obtained 

 rare insects at odd moments which would otherwise have been 

 wasted. I have shot apes, hornbills, and squirrels without going 

 outside of my veranda, and obtained a considerable proportion 

 of the ants which I collected here within twenty yards of my 

 dwelling. It was two years later that I again visited Celebes, 

 spending four months in the northern part of the island in 1859. 

 I visited three localities in the district of Minahassa, which is 

 perhaps, without exception, the most pleasant and interesting 

 part of the archipelago, and one of tlie richest and most peculiar 

 in its natural history. The climate is moist, like that of Borneo 

 and Malacca, the soil is rich from the volcanic detritus, and the 

 forests are very luxuriant. Tiie insects I obtained comprised 

 about 85 species of Hymenoptera, most of which were new species. 

 Owing, perhaps, to my having made three separate collections in 

 different localities, Celebes furnished me with more species of 

 Hymenoptera than any other island I visited. I believe myself, 

 however, that it is really richer in this order, because I did not 

 obtain a correspondingly large number of species in the other 

 orders of insects. 



The various islands of the Moluccas — Bouru, Amboyna, Ce- 

 ram, Batchian, and Grilolo — are very similar in general character. 

 They have all a moist climate and a very luxuriant forest vege- 

 tation, and are probably all nearly equally productive in in- 

 sects. The small island of Batchian was the one in which I 

 stayed longest (six months), found the best collecting-ground, 

 and enjoyed the best health, which sufficiently accounts for my 

 having made the best collections there. The new paradise-bird 

 {Semioptera Wallacei) , the grand hutterQy {Of'niihopfera Crcesiis), 

 the fine Coleoptera {Glenea picta and Tmesisternus (^Spliingnotus) 

 Dunningi), and the remarkable Megachile Pluto among Hymeno- 

 ptera are a few of the treasures the capture of which sweetened 

 my residence in this little-known island. The Aru Islands were 

 the first portion of the great Papuan region which I visited ; the 

 fauna was entirely new to me, and excessively interesting, and I 

 collected with great assiduity. In my visits at a later period 

 to Dorey in New Guinea, and to Waigiou, I suffered much from 



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