The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

178 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.on the lower slopes of many of the hills tobacco and vegetableswere grown. Most of the slopes are covered with huge blocksof rock, very fatiguing to scramble over, while a number of thehills are so precipitous as to be quite inaccessible. These circumstances,combined with the excessive drought, were veryunfavourable for my pui'suits. Birds were scarce, and I gotbut few new to me. Insects were tolerably plentiful, but unequal.Beetles, usually so numerous and interesting, wereexceedingly scai-ce, some of the families being quite absent andothers only represented by very minute species. The Flies andBees, on the other hand, were abundant, and of these I dailyobtained new and interesting species. The rare and beautifulButterflies of Celebes were the chief object of my search, and Ifound many species altogether new to me, but they were generallyso active and shy as to render their capture a matter ofAlmost the only good place for them was ingreat difliculty.the dry beds of the streams in tlie forest, where, at damp places,muddy pools, or even on the dry rocks, all sorts of insects couldbe found. In these rocky forests dwell some of the finest butterfliesin the world. Three species of Ornithoptera, measuringseven or eight inches across the wings, and beautifully markedwith spots or masses of satiny yellow on a black ground, wheelthrough the thickets with a strong sailing flight.About thedamp places are swarms of the beautiful blue-banded Papilios,miletus and telephus, the superb golden green P. macedon, andthe rare little swallow-tail Papilio rhesus, of all of which, tlioughvery active, I succeeded in capturing fine series of sjDecimens.I have rarely enjoyed myself more than dui'ing my residencehere. As I sat taking my cofl'ee at six in the morning, rai'ebirds would often be seen on some tree close by, wlien I wouldliastily sally out in my slippers, and perhaps secure a prize Ihad been seeking after for weeks. The great hornbills ofCelebes (Buceros cassidix) would often come with loud-flappingwings, and perch upon a lofty tree just in front of me ; and theblack baboon monkeys, Cynopithecus nigrescens, often stareddown in astonishment at such an intrusion into their domains ;while at night herds of wild pigs roamed about the house, devouringrefuse, and obliging us to put away everything eatableor breakable from our little cooking-house. A few minutes'search on the fallen trees around my house at suni'ise and sunset,would often produce me more beetles than I would meetwith in a day's collecting, and odd moments could be madevaluable which when living in villages or at a distance fromthe forest are inevitably wasted. Where the sugar-palms weredripping with sap, flies congregated in immense numbers, andit was by spending half an hour at these when I had tlie timeto spare, that I obtained tlie finest and most remarkablecollection of this group of insects that I have ever made.Then what delightful hours I passed wandering up and downthe dry river-courses, full of water-lioles and rocks and fallen