14 
MALACCA. 
Merlimau is an unhealthy place in the neighbourhood of mud-swamps. Here I first 
felt the effects of the climate, on some days being scarcely able to drag myself about. 
The Malays are much cleaner than the Chinese, their houses being built on piles, and 
the ground beneath is kept neatly swept; but the dirty Chinaman, who will not take a 
lesson, builds his house on the ‘ground, round which he digs a shallow trench, which 
becomes full of filth, and emits a stench that would be fatal to anyone but the owner. 
On the 17th of February we left Merlimau for Chin Chin. On this journey we left the 
splendid high roads, which are a credit to the Colony, and followed a track through Chinese 
plantations ; the cart jolted about to such an extent that many things -were thrown out. 
At mid-day we had only accomplished twelve miles of our journey, and it was past seven at 
night before our weary oxen reached the station. On the road, while walking ahead of the 
cart, I noticed a suspicious-looking brown leaf that had fallen across a green one; but 
knowing that some butterflies closely resemble dead leaves, I caught it in my net: as the 
expected flutter did not come, “ done again ” passed through my mind as I proceeded to 
throw the leaf out of my net, when to my surprise the dead leaf became suddenly trans¬ 
formed into a grasshopper arrangement, which walked on to my fingers; so perfect was the 
disguise that I should have thrown the insect away if it had not fastened on to my hand. 
As if to make the resemblance closer to a dead leaf another specimen, which I caught a few 
minutes afterwards, had a small transparent window in the leaf-like development on the 
back, as if to better imitate the holes in decayed leaves. I have figured this grasshopper 
opposite page 50, fig. 3, with several other wonderfully formed insects. 
At Chin Chin birds were almost extinct, owing to the destruction caused by a foreigner, 
who boasted that he had sent several millions of birds’ skins to the markets of London and 
Paris for millinery purposes. The law passed by the Government caused this man to leave 
the State of Malacca; but as he only went to the other side of a boundary stream into the 
State of Johore, it did not make much difference to him. As this collector was living but a 
short distance from the station, I walked over to see him one afternoon; he showed me a 
great many beautiful but badly skinned birds; there were also several large boxes of wings 
and heads of victims spoilt in skinning. He employed, he told me, fifty-two Malays, who 
went off into the forests for a month at a time. I suppose this man did more harm in a 
month than any genuine collector does in four or five years; and that not a specimen of 
all this fearful slaughter caused more than a few days’ pleasure to some fashionable woman, 
Avhile scientific collections with care may last for ever, besides being necessary to our 
knowledge. So much has been written on this subject, but apparently without success; 
women will no doubt continue to wear anything they think becomes them, regardless of the 
suffering caused to many thousands of creatures that have as much right to be in the 
world as they have. 
Not far from the house was a muddy stream, in which were numbers of enormous 
Monitor Lizards ( Yaranus , sp.'?). These reptiles attain a length of over six feet and a girth 
of 18 J inches ; they feed on fish, but also on birds. In Borneo they used to take up their 
abode in some hollow tree, not far from a poultry-yard; soon you began to miss your 
chickens, until one day the hens would be in such a state of excitement, that on going to 
look one of these huge reptiles would be discovered in the middle of the farmyard, where, 
