132 BOURU. [chap. XXVI. 



men to clear a patch of forest, from which I hoped to 

 obtain many fine beetles before I left. 



During the whole of my stay, however, insects never 

 became plentiful. My clearing produced me a few fine 

 longicorns and Buprestidse, different from any I had before 

 seen, together with several of the Amboyna species, but by 

 no means so numerous or so beautiful as I had found in 

 that small island. For example, I collected only 210 

 different kinds of beetles during my two months' stay at 

 Bouru, while in three weeks at Amboyna, in 1857, 1 found 

 more than 300 species. One of the finest insects found at 

 Bouru was a large Cerambyx, of a deep shining chestnut 

 colour, and with very long antennae. It varied greatly 

 in size, the largest specimens being three inches long, 

 while the smallest were only an inch, the antennae varying 

 from one and a half to five inches. 



One day my boy Ali came home with a story of a 

 big snake. He was walking through some high grass, 

 and stepped on something which he took for a small 

 fallen tree, but it felt cold and yielding to his feet, 

 and far to the right and left there was a waving and 

 rustling of the herbage. He jumped back in affright 

 and prepared to shoot, but could not get a good view 

 of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a 

 tree being dragged along through the grass. As he 

 had several times already shot large snakes, which he 



