298 



MR. A. R. WALLACE ON INDIAN ETC. 



yet the natives ascend the trees, and with nearly naked bodies 

 take away the combs, protected only by a smouldering torch, the 

 smoke from which in some degree keeps off the insects. The 

 Dyaks of Borneo ascend the trees by driving strong pegs of bam- 

 boo into the trunk, which they connect with an upright bamboo, 

 and thus form a good ladder. The people of Timor literally walk 

 up the trees, by means of a long piece of creeper put round them, 

 and the extremities held in the hand. It is a wonderful sight to 

 see a man ascend thus a vertical trunk 100 feet high, and then 

 creep out upon a horizontal branch and coolly brush away the 

 myriads of bees from a comb a yard in diameter, and become im- 

 mediately enveloped in a cloud of angry insects, while he cuts off 

 the comb and lets it down to his companions below by a slender 

 cord. In this manner many tons of wax are annually collected, 

 the immature bees and honey supplying a luxurious feast to the 

 bee-hunters. 



The genus Trigona consists of small stingless bees, which 

 make their nests in holes of trees, consisting of oval irregular 

 cells of black wax. They occur over the whole archipelago ; for 

 though they are not in my lists from the Moluccas, that is 

 merely because I neglected to collect them, owing to their being 

 so very common. 



In the Tables of the geographical distribution of the species 

 and genera I have arranged the localities in a certain order, and 

 divided them into groups and regions which I believe to be na- 

 tural. This arrangement is founded chiefly upon the facts pre- 

 sented by the Mammalia and Birds, groups which are in many 

 respects the best adapted to exhibit clearly the phenomena of 

 geographical distribution, since they are not subject to many dis- 

 turbing influences which powerfully affect the distribution of in- 

 sects. These come chiefly under two heads — accidental or invo- 

 luntary transmission, and direct dependence on vegetation and 

 climate. It is evident that Mammalia have scarcely any means 

 of voluntarily passing from island to island over straits of the sea 

 from twenty to fifty miles wide, or even for a much less distance ; 

 and they are scarcely likely to be accidentally carried to sea in 

 large numbers, so as to give a chance of a few swimming over to 

 adjacent islands and there establishing themselves. Accordingly 

 we find that the mammalia inhabiting islands, even when very 

 close to another island or continent, indicate very accurately 

 either the recent separation of the two, in which case (as in Great 



