350 MY LIFE 



(Ega), which have interested me greatly, and have almost 

 made me long to be again on the Amazon, even at the cost 

 of leaving the unknown Spice Islands still unexplored. I 

 have been here since February waiting for a vessel to Macassar 

 (Celebes), a country I look forward to with the greatest 

 anxiety and with expectations of vast treasures in the insect 

 world. Malacca, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo form but one 

 zoological province, the majority of the species in all classes 

 of animals being common to two or more of these countries. 

 There is decidedly less difference between them than between 

 Para and Santarem or Barra. I have therefore as yet only 

 visited the best known portion of the Archipelago, and con- 

 sider that I am now about to commence my real work. I 

 have spent six months in Malacca and Singapore, and fifteen 

 months in Borneo (Sarawak), and have therefore got a good 

 idea of what this part of the Archipelago is like. Compared 

 with the Amazon valley, the great and striking feature here 

 is the excessive poverty of the Diurnal Lepidoptera. The 

 glorious Heliconidae are represented here by a dozen or 

 twenty species of generally obscure-coloured Euplseas, the 

 Nymphalidse containing nothing comparable with Epicalias, 

 Callitheas, Catagrammas, etc., either in variety or abundance 

 to make up for their want of brilliancy. A few species of 

 Adolias, Limentis, and Charaxes are the most notable forms. 

 The Satyridse have nothing to be placed by the side of the 

 lovely Hseteras of the Amazon. Your glorious Erycinidse 

 are represented by half a dozen rather inconspicuous species, 

 and even the Lycasnidae, though more numerous and com- 

 prising some lovely species, do not come up to the Theclas 

 of Para. Even the dull Hesperidse are almost wanting here, 

 for I do not think I have yet exceeded a dozen species of 

 this family. All this is very miserable and discouraging to 

 one who has wandered in the forest-paths around Para or on 

 the sandy shores of the Amazon or Rio Negro. The only 

 group in which we may consider the two countries to be 

 about equal is that of the true Papilios (including Ornithop- 

 tera), though even in these I think you have more species. 

 Including Ornithoptera and Leptocircus, I have found as yet 



