i] A ROAD OVER TREE TRUNKS 



and branches tied down with rotangs and fixed with stakes driven 

 into the ground. Such pathways when recently constructed can be 

 travelled over rapidly enough when one has learnt how to do so 

 with bare feet, but a novice can only acquire the art after the 

 experience gained by frequent falls. 



The road to Siul was for the most part of this kind, but being 

 some months old the trunks, owing to the prevailing damp heat 

 and frequent rains, were becoming decayed. Many had lost their 

 bark on the exposed side, and this was rendered extremely slippery 

 by a thin coating of a minute alga. Such trunks were not at all easy 

 to cross without slipping off, for they were as greasy as if they had 

 been well soaped. I soon learnt that thick-soled boots were highly 

 inconvenient for travelling along the pathways of a Bornean forest, 

 and found thin-soled cloth shoes better adapted to the task ; for 

 although they cannot prevent one getting wet feet, they afford a 

 certain amount of protection against thorns. 



The inconvenience and trouble of travelling along these path- 

 ways — the only means of crossing the forest marshes — is, however, 

 amply compensated to a naturalist, and especially an entomologist, 

 by the abundance of insect life. That narrow luminous streak, 

 where the sun rays are not intercepted by the dense foliage overhead, 

 is frequented by myriads of insects, especially butterflies ; too often, 

 alas ! not easy to catch. Amongst those which were to me par- 

 ticularly tantalising were certain big Hestias, with silvery transparent 

 wings, which kept fluttering some fifty feet or more above my head 

 without ever coming within reach. At last in despair I fired at 

 them with dust shot, and was thus able to get one. 



On the trunks and branches recently cut down, one was pretty 

 sure of making large captures of coleoptera of the longicorn and 

 Curculio families ; and on the damp, rotten surface of trees which 

 had been long dead, mucilaginous planarians glided along. More 

 rarely a carab was to be seen, conspicuous by its metallic tints 

 and slow gait ; and shin} 7 myriapods of a vivid chestnut hue 

 (Spharopceus sulcatulus), which, on the slightest vibration, curled 

 themselves up, forming a ball of the size of a large musket bullet, 

 and thus rolling off to the ground. Under the bark a rich catch of 

 insects was easily made, mostly of dull colours and with depressed 

 bodies. The mycologist, too, was sure in such places of a fine collec- 

 tion of Polyporus, Hypoxylon. Tremella, Xylaria and other kinds 

 of cryptogams. At times interminable columns of termites or white 

 ants (which are, nevertheless, not white but brown) would be met 

 with, crossing the path in serried ranks in a sinuous line, looking 

 not unlike a never-ending serpent. It is not improbable that from 

 these termite processions arose the oft-repeated tale that the 

 forests of Borneo harbour snakes of such enormous length that 

 they never come to an end. 



9 



