CHAP. XXIV.] POOR COLLECTING GROUND. 57 



the most barren parts of Europe, and hardly more con- 

 spicuous. In temperate climates there is a tolerable 

 uniformity in the distribution of insects over those parts 

 of a country in which there is a similarity in the vege- 

 tation, any deficiency being easily accounted for by the 

 absence of wood or uniformity of surface. The traveller 

 hastily passing through such a country can at once pick 

 out a collecting ground which will afford him a fair 

 notion of its entomology. Here the case is different. 

 There are certain requisites of a good collecting ground 

 which can only be ascertained to exist by some days' 

 search in the vicinity of each village. In some places 

 there is no virgin forest, as at Djilolo and Sahoe ; in 

 others there are no open pathways or clearings, as here. 

 At Batchian there are only two tolerable collecting places, 

 — the road to the coal mines, and the new clearings made 

 by the Tomore people, the latter being by far the most 

 productive. I believe the fact to be that insects are pretty 

 uniformly distributed over these countries (where the 

 forests have not been cleared away), and are so scarce in 

 any one spot that searching for them is almost useless. 

 If the forest is all cleared away, almost all the insects 

 disappear with it ; but when small clearings and paths are 

 made, the fallen trees in various stages of drying and 

 decay, the rotting leaves, the loosening bark and the fun- 

 goid growths upon it, together with the flowers that appear 



