v] GUNONG SKUNYET 



lucent material, with little or no admixture of feathers and other 

 impurities. The swifts producing the valuable edible nests (Collocalia 

 nidifica) inhabit the caves in the limestone hills near Serambo, and 

 are a source of considerable revenue to the Dyaks of the village. 



Wallace had lived for some time at this very Pininjau bungalow, 

 and made some memorable captures of nocturnal lepidoptera. 

 They were singularly successful, but we were not so fortunate, 

 although many were the species which used to fly about the 

 verandah, attracted by our lights. 



One day I started to visit one of the limestone crags in our 

 neighbourhood, and got some Dyaks to guide me to Gunong Skun- 

 yet, a small isolated eminence which rises abruptly from the plain 

 to the north. The route we took led us through a part which was 

 once cultivated, and no traces of the primeval forest remained ; in 

 point of fact there is no such forest around Pininjau. The ground 

 is varied and undulated, forming ridges and depressions ; some of 

 the former are covered with lalang grass, but the vegetation is 

 mostly that which always grows where the old forest has been cleared, 

 and is. composed mainly of species which have a wide geo- 

 graphical distribution, and are in no way specially representative of 

 the endemic flora of the island. But amongst them was an excep- 

 tion, a shrub belonging to the Scrophulariaceae, which turned out to 

 be the type of a new genus, described by Bentham under the name 

 of Brookea dasyantha. 



Most of the plants grew as bushes or large shrubs, and were 

 species of the genera Eurya, Adinandra, Ficus, Vernonia (an. 

 arboreal composite), Mappia, etc., etc., all characteristic of the forest 

 of secondary growth. 



In the low-lying parts the path was very bad, and we sank in 

 mud and water to our knees, whilst elsewhere it was most difficult 

 to keep one's footing on the slippery argillaceous soil. When such 

 paths are recently made, and lead to a new plantation of the Dyaks, 

 they are fairly practicable, the worst spots being improved by lay- 

 ing down small tree-trunks ; but these rot in a very short time, and 

 then only make matters worse, for they are apt to snap suddenly 

 and precipitate the traveller with scant ceremony into the mire. 



In the small valleys between the hills the grasses grow tall, and 

 form the habitual feeding grounds of deer ; but we met with none 

 on that occasion. It took us fully four hours to reach Gunong 

 Skunyet, an enormous limestone crag which rises abruptly into 

 peaks, is quite isolated, and most difficult of ascent. I got up to a 

 sort of cave or fissure which penetrated the cliff, but I did not even 

 attempt to climb to the summit. 



In limestone cliffs such as these the rock is full of holes, ero- 

 sions, fissures, and caves ; and the configuration often most fantastic, 

 and so sharply pointed and jagged that climbing was a painful 



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