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ME. A. E. WALLACE ON INDIAN ETC. 



and I obtained comparatively few insects. In March, however, 

 when the dry weather commenced, I went to Si-Munjon, on a river 

 to the east of Sarawak, where some coal-mines were being 

 opened, and found that I had hit upon an excellent spot for in- 

 sect-collecting. I spent eight months there, living in a little 

 house which I had built for me in a small clearing surrounded by 

 forest, and obtained in that locality almost all the insects which 

 I collected in Borneo. About 2000 Coleoptera, of which near 

 300 were Longicornes, and 216 species of Aculeate Hyme- 

 noptera, will give some idea of my collections in this spot. 



After a considerable delay in Singapore, waiting for a vessel, 

 I visited the island of Lombock, which, being highly cultivated 

 and possessing little forest vegetation, produced a very scanty 

 harvest of insects — especially as my two months' stay there was 

 chiefly occupied in obtaining the birds of the island, which were 

 very numerous and interesting. At length, in September 1856, 

 I reached Macassar, in Celebes, which it had long been my 

 anxious desire to visit, as I believed that island to be almost 

 unknown, and likely to yield a rich harvest of novelties. The 

 first appearance of the country, however, was by no means as- 

 suring. As far as the eye could reach extended a perfect level 

 of dusty stubble, on which rice had been grown in the wet 

 season. On the horizon, in mauy directions, was what appeared 

 to be forest, but turned out on examination to be only villages 

 embowered in clumps of fruit-trees. I had many weary excur- 

 sions over these dusty plains, exposed to a fierce sun, which was 

 never clouded between his rising and setting, before I could 

 discover a spot which seemed at all suitable for collecting in. 

 This was at a village about twelve miles off, and beyond the 

 limits of the Dutch territory, so that I had to obtain per- 

 mission from the Sultan of Groa before I could reside in it. I 

 spent two months there, suffering greatly from fever, but ob- 

 taining very fine collections in all departments of natural his- 

 tory, among which was the collection of Hymenoptera described 

 by Mr. Smith in the ' Proceedings of the Linnean Society ' 

 (April 1858), and containing upwards of 100 species. After re- 

 turning from the Aru Islands, eight months later, I collected 

 in another locality, about twenty miles north of Macassar, near 

 a range of limestone mountains, and in three months (August, 

 September, and October, 1857) added largely to my collection of 

 insects. I obtained here about 120 species of Hymenoptera, of 



