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

390 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.and hunting under rotten bark, in all the best stations I haddiscovered during my walks. I was out from ten in the morningtill three in the afternoon, and it took me six hours' workat home to pin and set out all the specimens, and to separatethe sj^ecies. Although I had already been working this spotdaily for two months and a half, and had obtained over 800species of Coleoptera, this day's work added 32 new ones.Among these wei-e 4 Longicorns, 2 Carabidse, 7 Staphylinidse,7 Curculionidfe, 2 Copridte, 4 Chrysomelidse, 3 Hetei'omera,1 Elater, and 1 Buprestis. Even on the last day I went out,I obtained 16 new species ;so that although I collected over athousand distinct sorts of beetles in a sjiace not much exceedinga square mile during the three months of my residenceat Dorey, I cannot believe that this represents one halfthe species really inhabiting the same spot, or a fourth of whatmiglit be obtained in an area extending twenty miles in eachdirection.On the 22nd of July the schooner Hester Helena arrived, andfive days afterwards we bade adieu to Dorey, without muchregret, for in no jDlace which I have visited have I encounteredmore privations and annoyances. Continual rain, continualsickness, little wholesome food, with a plague of ants and flies,surpassing anything I liad before met with, required all anaturalist's ardour to encounter ; and when they wex'e uncompensatedby great success in collecting, became all the moreinsupportable. This long-thouglit-of and much-desired voyageto New Guinea had realized none of my expectations. Insteadof being far better than the Aru Islands, it was in almost everytliingruuch worse. Instead of producing several of the rarerParadise Birds, I had not even seen one of them, and had notobtained any one supei'latively fine bird or insect. I cannotdeny, however, that I)orey was very rich in ants. One smallblack kind was excessively^ abundant. Almost every shrub andtree was more or less infested with it, and its large ])apery nestswere e^•ery where to be seen. They immediately took possessionof my house, building a large nest in the roof, and formingpapery tunnels down almost every post. They swarmed on mytable as I was at work setting out my insects, carrying them offfrom under my very nose, and even tearing them from the cardson which they were gummed if I left them for an instant. Theycrawled continually over my hands and face, got into my hair,over my whole body, not producing muchand roamed at willinconvenience till tliey began to bite, which they would do onmeeting with any obstruction to their passage, and with asharpness which made me jump again and rusli to undress andturn out the offender. They visited my bed also, so tliat nightbrought no relief from their persecutions ; and I A-erily believethat during my three and a half months' residence at Dorey Iwas never for a single hour entirely fi'ee from them. They werenot nearly so voracious as many other kinds, but their numbersI