IN JAVA. 55 



ficance of our own scientific term. The great group of the 

 Laurels, whicli so vary in flower and foliage as to be separated 

 off into many genera by botanists, are all designated by the one 

 name Hum, but they are differentiated by no fewer than sixty- 

 three different specific terms, in every instance indicating 

 some prominent distinguishing characteristic of flower, fruit or 

 timber ; and on examination, very few indeed of them turn out 

 not to belong to the Laurel family. Of oaks, Passang in their 

 tongue, they discriminate sixteen different species, commencing 

 their list with the one they consider most typical, just as we find 

 in our own catalogues of birds, among the Warblers for instance, 

 Cisticola cisficola representing the typical speeias, the Sunda- 

 nese say Passang hetul, or " true oak," for what they consider 

 the oak of oaks. Among animals their system of classification 

 into genera is not carried so far ; but all the more distinctive 

 groups, especially those living in communities, and every 

 insect and bird, if in any way peculiar or where it can be mis- 

 taken for another, have each their own binomial appellation. 



I was disappointed in finding that the forest about Genteng 

 was nearly all second growth, with scarcely any of what I was 

 principally in search of for my herbarium— specimens of the 

 primal trees. Birds, however, were more plentiful, and in the 

 avenue-like roads and paths, stretching for miles in the neigh- 

 bourhood, butterflies and other insects were very abundant, 

 but though interesting to me, and occasionally new to the 

 ornithology or entomology of the Malayan region, most of 

 them were species well known to science. Amid an expanse 

 of low scrub in front of my door, on which the buffaloes from 

 the neighbouring villages wandered more at their own will 

 than directed by their young herds, stood within gunshot of 

 my verandah table several tall trees, from which, frequented as 

 they were at all hours of the day by difi"erent kinds of birds, I 

 was constantly able to add with great ease to my collection, 

 and to observe the habits of many species that it would have 

 been difficult otherwise to see. 



I never tired of watching the friendly relation between tlie 

 Buffalo-birds (Sturnopasfor ialla and S. melanopterus) and 

 their bovine hosts. They used to collect in impatient flocks 

 aboiit the hour of the return of the herd to their feeding 

 grounds from the wallowing holes, whither in the heat of the 



