4636 Insects. 



The Entomology of Malacca. By Alfred R. Wallace, Esq. 



To an entomologist Malacca seems, at first sight, a much finer lo- 

 cality than Singapore : the former is one of the very oldest European 

 settlements in the East, while the latter is almost the newest. In the 

 one, patches of the primaeval forests remain on the hill-tops only, and 

 all the low grounds are covered with new plantations of gambic, pep- 

 per and nutmeg, which afford scarcely an insect worth collecting: in 

 the other, though for miles round the town the virgin forest has long 

 since disappeared, its place is supplied by old plantations and shady 

 groves of magnificent fruit trees, in which many of the insect inha- 

 bitants of the jungle appear to thrive as well as in their original 

 domains. Further in the interior the whole country gradually merges 

 into the vast forests of the centre of the peninsula, where the nume- 

 rous Malay villages, embosomed in masses of cocoa-nut, jack and 

 durian trees, and the settlements of Chinese tin miners, with the nu- 

 merous paths and roads made by them, offer many tempting localities 

 for the entomologist. And the promise is well fulfilled ; for though 

 some particular groups were far more abundant at Singapore, yet, 

 taking insects of all orders, the superior richness of Malacca was very 

 striking. My first locality was near a Chinese mining settlement, 

 about twelve miles inland. My servant getting fever, I was obliged 

 to return to Malacca in less than a fortnight, where I was attacked 

 myself, and it was another fortnight before I was well enough to leave. 

 I then went to a government bungalow, seven miles further in the 

 jungle, and remained there a month. From thence I made an excur- 

 sion to Mount Ophir, in the interior, where I remained a w r eek, and 

 then returned to Malacca and Singapore. 



It was at my earliest station that I first fell in with the magnificent 

 Ornithoptera Amphrisius, but for a long time I despaired of getting a 

 specimen, as they sailed along at a great height, often without moving 

 the wings for a considerable distance, in a manner quite distinct from 

 that of any other of the Papilionidae with which I am acquainted. To 

 see these and the great Ideas on the wing is certainly one of the finest 

 sights an entomologist can behold. It was, however, at my next sta- 

 tion, and at the foot of Mount Ophir, that I first met with many of the 

 fine Eastern Papilios, which are certainly superior in beauty and 

 variety to those of South America: by variety I do not mean the 

 number of species, but the different forms and style of colouring. Of 

 the handsome green and blue spotted butterflies, P. Agamemnon, &c, 



