g INTRODUCTION. 



central Java, and advantageously employed some months in the districts of Pajittan 

 and Kalak, in which vegetation is luxuriant and insects proportionally abundant. 

 I here added a considerable number both of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera to my 

 collections. I returned by a northern route to the capital of Surakarta, the residence 

 of the Susuhunan or emperor of Java, the first in importance of the native princes ; 

 and as I here found an opportunity for carrying on my pursuits with advantage, I 

 formed a permanent residence. 



Surakarta was, upon the whole, the most important station in my various researches 

 into the natural history of Java ; as, besides the facilities mentioned in the 

 sequel, I here obtained, after the conquest of the island, the support and patronage 

 of the Honourable East-India Company, by which I am also enabled, at this time, 

 to bring the Catalogue of the Lepidopterous Insects before the Public. This 

 capital is situated in an extensive plain in the middle of the island ; and a concise 

 description of it has already been given in the preface to the Annulosa Javanica. In 

 selecting here a fixed residence, my objects were, in the first place, to have a secure 

 depot for my collections, and secondly, to obtain the necessary facilities for visiting, 

 from time to time, the various districts in the middle of Java, belonging to the native 

 Princes, many of which were still almost entirely in a state of nature, and highly 

 interesting in regard to their natural history. 



During the year 1813 I was engaged in a visit to the island of Banka and the 

 capital of Palembang, situated on the eastern coast of Sumatra. The mission, with 

 which I was honoured, in conjunction with the Resident, and the account of 

 my remarks which was required after my return, employed the greatest portion 

 of that year and of 1814, in consequence of which my entomological pursuits were 

 nearly suspended ; but early in the year 1815 I resumed them with renewed energy. 

 I had now acquired greater experience in collecting ; a number of natives had been 

 instructed for affording that assistance which in a hot climate was not only necessary, 

 but greatly conduced to the enlargement of my investigations. I was amply provided 

 with every convenience and facility for preserving what I had collected. Several 

 draughtsmen had likewise been trained, under my superintendence, for botanical 

 delineations, and the skill they acquired in those soon fitted them for the annulose 

 department. I was, therefore, enabled to enter upon a history of the Metamorphosis 

 of Javanese Lepidoptera : a design which had long engaged my anxious solicitude. 



Although I did not, at this period, so fully conceive the paramount necessity of 

 an acquaintance with the metamorphosis of Lepidoptera, towards the establishment of 

 a natural arrangement, as I have been led to do in later periods, yet I was so strongly 

 impressed with its essential importance in attempting a complete history of insects, 

 that I commenced with a fixed determination to prosecute the inquiry with unremit- 

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