Insects. 



5891 



fallen trees, that it is very difficult to capture them. Almost all the 

 other interesting groups are very scarce: Buprestidae, 12 species; 

 Lucanidaj, 1 species; Geodephaga, 12 species; each producing one 

 or two good things, the rest small and obscure. 



Having at length, with the greatest difficulty, procured a boat and 

 men, I went to the great island of Aru, in which 1 visited two localities 

 and remained two months. Here were numbers of species not found 

 on the smaller islands, and I increased my collection considerably. 

 In the Lamellicornes and Buprestidse, however, I did not get a single 

 new species, almost all my increase being confined to the Longicornes 

 and Rhyncophora. I doubled my species of Tmesisternus, which is 

 quite a characteristic of the New Guinea Fauna, and I was delighted 

 to obtain T. mirabilis, the largest and most beautiful of the group, in 

 tolerable plenty. I also added some nice butterflies to my collection, 

 and at length succeeded in obtaining two nearly perfect males of 

 Papilio Ulysses. Mosquitoes and minute ticks here attacked me so 

 perse veringly, that my feet and ankles refused to submit, and, breaking 

 out into inflamed ulcers, confined me to the house during a month of 

 the very finest weather, when I had hoped to obtain and preserve a 

 host of fine insects, for the incessant rain and damp sea air at Dobbo 

 had rendered it impossible properly to dry my first collections, a great 

 part of which was, I afterwards found, completely spoiled. In no part 

 of the tropics have I suff'ered so much from damp, or found it so ab- 

 solutely impossible to preserve my collections, though exposing them 

 to every gleam of sunshine, and even to fire heat, vrhich, however, is 

 of little use in bamboo houses which freely admit the damp air in 

 every direction. Returning to Dobbo I remained a prisoner for ano- 

 ther month, before I could again reach the forest. I then worked 

 hard for the remainder of my stay, adding many fine Hymenoptera 

 and Lepidoptera to my collections. 



Arriving safe at Macassar, and taking up my old quarters, I had a 

 most fatiguing task, — to open out, clean and pack my collecuons 

 (more than seven thousand specimens), which occupied my whole 

 time for three weeks. I was now able to ascertain my total number 

 of species in each order, and to determine the identity of many with 

 those described by Guerin and Boisduval from the French voyages. 

 These are very numerous, so much so that I think at least half of the 

 known insects from New Guinea will be found in my Aru collections, 

 which is not a little remarkable, considering that they have been ob- 

 tained from various and distant localities in that extensive country : 

 for instance, nineteen species of Tmesisternus are known, all from 



