ix] THE VALLEY OF ROTANGS 



remote epoch of the plasmation of organisms, an animal in gnawing 

 a plant shortened its branches, and these, under favourable climatic 

 conditions, were reproduced shorter or acuminated. Likewise, 

 fruits, leaves, or other parts of plants being bitten, pricked, or torn 

 by animals, the cicatrising tissue may have given rise to swellings, 

 projections, spines or other hyperplasia, which on repetition may 

 have become hereditary. 



I have been speaking in the present tense ; but it is not in the 

 present period that such effects can have been produced. What can 

 now be observed in Nature, or be produced artificially as an experi- 

 ment, can only reproduce in infinitesimal measure what must have 

 taken place in the primordial epoch of life, and this because one 

 cannot suppress the influence now exerted on all living beings by 

 the interminable phalanx of their progenitors. It is this inherited 

 influence which prevents the living beings of to-day from adapting 

 themselves to the circumstances which surround them, and obliges 

 them to reproduce and transmit the characters inherited from 

 their ancestors, even when such characters in the changed condi- 

 tions of existence have become useless or even pernicious. 



I used to visit the " Valley of Rotangs," not only for its plants, 

 but also in search of animals. Dead tree-trunks, either standing 

 or prostrate, were an inexhaustible field for the entomologist, and 

 on the fungi, especially Polyporus, which grew in great numbers 

 on such trunks, I always made large captures of Coleoptera, mostly 

 dark in colour with yellow spots, belonging to the Erotylidce and 

 EndomychidcB. Under a large and ancient tree-trunk, fallen across 

 the torrent, so as nearly to form a bridge, I had, on one occasion, 

 the rare good fortune to capture a Mormolyce, one of the wonders of 

 the insect world. It is a Carab of large dimensions, measuring 

 about three inches in length, and of extraordinary shape, for its 

 body is laminar, with elytrse greatly extended at the sides, and the 

 head is strangely elongated. It is difficult to see what is the use of 

 the singular conformation of this insect, which, on account of its 

 flattened body and dull coloration, would appear to be adapted 

 to live under the bark of trees, where, however, it has never been 

 found. Later I found a Mormolyce in Sumatra, and on this occasion 

 also it was on the surface of the inferior portion of a dead tree-trunk, 

 slightly raised from the ground and in the densest part of the forest. 



It was also in the " Valley of Rotangs" that on September 12th 

 I came across a small flock, some five or six specimens, of a beautiful 

 bird which I had not previously seen. Having shot one of them, 

 the others showed no fright, and I was thus able to secure four 

 specimens one after the other. I was not long in recognising them 

 to be Pityriasis gymnocephala, one of the few birds restricted 

 to Borneo and characteristic of its avifauna, and for this reason, 

 long sought for by me. I was thus delighted at having secured it. 



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