8 
MALACCA. 
My servant in the first few days showed his dislike to travel: when we arrived at a 
fresh station he would sit down and wait, doing nothing, until I called him for my meals ; 
then he would appear downcast and sorrowful, saying that there was “ no wood, no water, 
no nothing,” evidently expecting to find all these necessaries ready. For Eastern forest- 
travel a Chinaman is almost useless, he can never adapt himself to forest life and never will; 
it is far better to have an inferior servant at once in a native, break him into your ways, and 
he will always be willing to make the best of everything, besides using his own natural 
instincts to make everything he finds about him as useful as possible. I always found that 
a Chinaman required a native to wait upon him, and another to carry his baggage when on 
the march, so I cannot recommend them to any traveller who expects to rough it. I 
engaged a Malay to guide me to the forests and help to carry my gun and net; but he 
generally used to lead me to the most unlikely spots, so I concluded he did not quite 
understand what I wanted, as I was unable at this time to speak more than a few words in 
Malay, the chief reason being my Chinaman’s knowledge of English. 
My first victim in the East was a beautiful pearly-grey Drongo Shrike (JBuclicinga 
leucogenys). This genus is well known among ornithologists from its pugnacious habits, 
especially during its nesting-season, when a pair of Drongos will attack in the air the 
largest Hawks, and drive them out of the vicinity of their nests. Lovely species of bird- 
life came before my delighted eyes day by day: Trogons (JJarpactes diardi and duvaucelli ) 
with their crimson breasts like balls of fluff, so soft are these splendid creatures, but with 
a skin so tender that the most delicate of taxidermal fingers can hardly perform the last rites 
without tearing them. Though ornamented with the brightest of crimson breasts, and 
fairly large birds, Trogons are hard to see, their backs being brown and leaf-like in colour, 
and when perched quiet and motionless high in some forest tree they may easily remain 
unnoticed. I have known experienced Bornean natives, with eyes as sharp as needles, fire 
at a bunch of dead leaves, thinking they were firing at a Trogon. 
Honey-suckers, Kingfishers, Gapers, Irenas, all birds of brilliant hues, were continually 
being collected; butterflies in all their splendour disported themselves in the more open 
forest-paths or round the higher branches of some flowering tree. Other families of 
insect-life were in thousands, with a variety of both form and colour that would astonish a 
collector -in temperate climes. Most numerous perhaps of all groups, both in quantity and 
variety, are ants. Oh ! what troublesome mis chief-working little pests they are; nothing is 
safe from their depredations. A bird-skin is a perfect windfall to them : the feathers are cut 
off in lanes, and in a few hours the delight of my day’s expedition would be rendered utterly 
iiseless. On one occasion a large box of butterflies had been safely packed away in one of 
those splendid air-tight boxes that one takes out from home; the next day there was a 
perfect stream of little slowly-crawling red rascals making their way in and out of that box, 
and when I opened it, to my horror over eighty fine specimens were minus either body or 
head. I never trusted such boxes again, and nothing but isolation in kerosene oil, or some 
mixture equally objectionable to them, will save anything they can possibly destroy. In the 
low scrub, and especially in the gardens of Singapore, a wiry, long-legged red ant makes its 
nests in the trees, by binding the leaves together in a large ball. In this ant we meet with 
the acme of pluck and ferocity : a tap on that curious-looking ball of leaves brings out ant- 
