Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of the great horned Lamellicorn beetles are slightly roasted on the embers and eaten
whenever met with. The superabundance of insect life is therefore turned to some account
by these islanders.
Finding that birds were not very numerous, and hearing much of Labuan Tring at the
southern extremity of the bay, where there was said to be much uncultivated country and
plenty of birds as well as deer and wild pigs, I determined to go there with my two servants,
Ali, the Malay lad from Borneo, and Manuel, a Portuguese of Malacca accustomed to bird-
skinning. I hired a native boat with outriggers, to take us with our small quantity of luggage,
and a day's rowing and tracking along the shore brought us to the place.
I had a note of introduction to an Amboynese Malay, and obtained the use of part of his
house to live and work in. His name was 'Inchi Daud' (Mr. David), and he was very civil;
but his accommodations were limited, and he could only give me part of his reception-room.
This was the front part of a bamboo house (reached by a ladder of about six rounds very
wide apart), and having a beautiful view over the bay. However, I soon made what arrange-
ments were possible, and then set to work. The country around was pretty and novel to me,
consisting of abrupt volcanic hills enclosing flat valleys or open plains. The hills were
covered with a dense scrubby bush of bamboos and prickly trees and shrubs, the plains were
adorned with hundreds of noble palm-trees, and in many places with a luxuriant shrubby ve-
getation. Birds were plentiful and very interesting, and I now saw for the first time many
Australian forms that are quite absent from the islands westward. Small white cockatoos
were abundant, and their loud screams, conspicuous white colour, and pretty yellow crests,
rendered them a very important feature in the landscape. This is the most westerly point on
the globe where any of the family are to be found. Some small honeysuckers of the genus
Ptilotis, and the strange mound-maker (Megapodius gouldii), are also here first met with on
the traveller's journey eastward. The last-mentioned bird requires a fuller notice.
The Megapodidæ are a small family of birds found only in Australia and the surrounding
islands, but extending as far as the Philippines and North-west Borneo. They are allied to
the gallinaceous birds, but differ from these and from all others in never sitting upon their
eggs, which they bury in sand, earth, or rubbish, and leave to be hatched by the heat of the
sun or of fermentation. They are all characterised by very large feet and long curved claws,
and most of the species of Megapodius rake and scratch together all kinds of rubbish, dead
leaves, sticks, stones, earth, rotten wood, &c., till they form a large mound, often six feet
high and twelve feet across, in the middle of which they bury their eggs. The natives can tell
by the condition of these mounds whether they contain eggs or not; and they rob them
whenever they can, as the brick-red eggs (as large as those of a swan) are considered a great
