Natural- Histoi y Collectors. 5415 



being away from the village, I am afraid to go out in the country any 

 more, and here there are nothing but dusty roads and paddy fields for 

 miles around, producing no insects or birds worth collecting : it is 

 really astonishing, and will be almost incredible to many persons at 

 home, that a tropical country when cultivated should produce so little 

 for the collector : the worst collecting-ground in England would pro- 

 duce ten times as many species of beetles as can be found here, and 

 even our common English butterflies are finer and more numerous 

 than those of Ampanam in the present dry season ; a walk of several 

 hours with my net will produce perhaps two or three species of Chryso- 

 mela and Coccinella, and a Cicindela, and two or three Hemiptera 

 and flies; and every day the same species will occur. In an unculti- 

 vated district which I have visited, in the south part of the island, 

 I did indeed find insects rather more numerous, but two months' 

 assiduous collecting have only produced me eighty species of 

 Coleoptera ! why there is not a spot in England where the same 

 number could not be obtained in a few days in spring. Butterflies 

 were rather better, for I obtained thirty-eight species, the majority, 

 however, being Pieridae; of the others, Papilio Peranthus is the most 

 beautiful. 



"The birds have, however, interested me much more than the 

 insects, as they are proportion ably much more numerous, and throw 

 great light on the laws of geographical distribution of animals in the 

 East. The Islands of Baly and Lombock, for instance, though of 

 nearly the same size, of the same soil, aspect, elevation and climate, 

 and within sight of each other, yet differ considerably in their produc- 

 tions, and, in fact, belong to two quite distinct zoological provinces, 

 of which they form the extreme limits. As an instance, I may men- 

 tion the cockatoos, a group of birds confined to Australia and the 

 Moluccas, but quite unknown in Java, Borneo, Sumatra and Malacca; 

 one species, however (Plyctolophus sulphureus), is abundant in Lom- 

 bock, but is unknown in Baly, the island of Lombock forming the ex- 

 treme western limit of its range and that of the whole family. Many 

 other species illustrate the same fact, and I am preparing a short 

 account of them for publication. My collection here consists of sixty- 

 eight species of birds, about twenty of which are probably not found 

 west of the island, being species either found in Timor and Sumbawa 

 or hitherto undescribed. I have here, for the first time, met with many 

 interesting birds, whose structure and habits it has been a great 

 pleasure to study, such as the Artamidae and the genera Ptilotis, Tro- 

 pidorhynchus, Plyctolophus and Megapodius. 



