44 MALACCA. [chap. hi. 



fresh killed, the contrast of the vivid blue with the rich 

 colours of the plumage is remarkably striking and beau- 

 tiful. The lovely Eastern trogons, with their rich brown 

 backs, beautifully pencilled wings, and crimson breasts, 

 were also soon obtained, as well as the large green barbets 

 (Megalsema versicolor) — fruit-eating birds, something like 

 small toucans, with a short, straight bristly bill, and whose 

 head and neck are variegated with patches of the most vivid 

 blue and crimson. A day or two after, my hunter brought 

 me a specimen of the green gaper (Calyptomena viridis), 

 which is like a small cock-of-the-rock, but entirely of the 

 most vivid green, delicately marked on the wings with 

 black bars. Handsome woodpeckers and gay kingfishers, 

 green and brown cuckoos with velvety red faces and green 

 beaks, red-breasted doves and metallic honeysuckers, were 

 brought in day after day, and kept me in a continual state 

 of pleasurable excitement. After a fortnight one of my 

 servants was seized with fever, and on returning to 

 Malacca, the same disease attacked the other as well as 

 myself. By a liberal use of quinine, I soon recovered, and 

 obtaining other men, went to staj r at the Government bun- 

 galow of Ayer-panas, accompanied by a young gentleman, 

 a native of the place, who had a taste for natural history. 



At Ayer-panas we had a comfortable house to stay in, 

 and plenty of room to dry and preserve our specimens ; 

 but, owing to there being no industrious Chinese to cut 



