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

XXIV.] BATCHIAK 263in the Moluccas. One of these especially attracted my attentionfrom its elegance. The stem was not thicker than my wrist,yet it was very lofty, and bore clusters of bright red fruit. Itwas apparently a species of Areca. Another of immense heightclosely resembled in apiDearance the Euterpes of South America.Here also grew the fan-leafed palm, whose small, nearly entireleaves are used to make the dammar torches, and to form thewa:ter-buckets in universal use. During this walk I saw near adozen species of palms, as well as two or three Pandani differentfrom those of Langundi. There were also some very fine climbingferns and true wild Plantains (Musa), bearing an edible fruitnot so large as one's thumb, and consisting of a mass of seedsjust covered with pulp and skin. The people assured me theyhad tried the experiment of sowing and cultivating this species,but could not improve it. They probably did not grow it insufficient quantity, and did not persevere sufficiently long.Batchian is an island that would perhaps repay the researchesof a botanist better than any other in the whole Archipelago.It contains a great variety of surface and of soil, abundance oflarge and small streams, many of which are na\dgable for somedistance, and there being no savage inhabitants, every part ofit can be visited with joerfect safety. It possesses gold, copper,and coal, hot springs and geysers, sedimentary and volcanicrocks and coralline limestone, alluvial plains, abruiDt hills andlofty mountains, a moist climate, and a grand and luxuriantforest vegetation.The few days I stayed here produced me several new insects,but scarcely any birds. Butterflies and birds are in fact remarkablyscarce in tliese forests. One may walk a whole day andnot see more than two or three species of either. In everythingbut beetles these eastern islands are very deficientcompared with the western (Java, Borneo, &c.), and much moreso if comjDared with the forests of South America, where twentyor thirty species of butterflies may be cauglit every day, and onvery good daj^s a hundred—a number we can hardly reach herein months of unremitting search. In birds there is the samedifference. In most parts of tropical America we may alwaysfind some species of woodpecker tanager, bushshrike, chatterer,trogon, toucan, cuckoo,and tyrant-fly-catcher ; and a few days'active search will produce more variety than can be here metwith in as many months. Yet, along with this poverty ofindividuals and of species, there are in almost every class andorder some one or two species of suclx extreme beauty orsingularity, as to vie with, or even surpass, anything that evenSouth America can jdreduce.One afternoon when I was arranging my insects, and surroundedby a crowd of wondering spectators, I showed one ofthem how to look at a small insect with a hand-lens, whichcaused such evident wonder that all the rest wanted to see ittoo. I therefore fixed the glass firmly to a piece of soft wood at