Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate
death. I had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement produced by what
will appear to most people a very inadequate cause.
I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, but this grand capture determin-
ed me to stay on till I obtained a good series of the new butterfly, which I have since named
Ornithoptera crœsus. The Mussænda bush was an admirable place, which I could visit every
day on my way to the forest; and as it was situated in a dense thicket of shrubs and creepers,
I set my man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so that I could easily get at any insect that
might visit it. Afterwards, finding that it was often necessary to wait some time there, I had
a little seat put up under a tree by the side of it, where I came every day to eat my lunch, and
thus had half an hour's watching about noon, besides a chance as I passed it in the morning.
In this way I obtained on an average one specimen a day for a long time, but more than half
of these were females, and more than half the remainder worn or broken specimens, so that I
should not have obtained many perfect males had I not found another station for them.
As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man Lahi with a net on purpose to
search for them, as they had also been seen at some flowering trees on the beach, and I
promised him half a day's wages extra for every good specimen he could catch. After a day
or two he brought me two very fair specimens, and told me he had caught them in the bed of
a large rocky stream that descends from the mountains to the sea about a mile below the vil-
lage. They flew down this river, settling occasionally on stones and rocks in the water, and
he was obliged to wade up it or jump from rock to rock to get at them. I went with him one
day, but found that the stream was far too rapid and the stones too slippery for me to do any-
thing, so I left it entirely to him, and all the rest of the time we stayed in Batchian he used to
be out all day, generally bringing me one, and on good days two or three specimens. I was
thus able to bring away with me more than a hundred of both sexes, including perhaps
twenty very fine males, though not more than five or six that were absolutely perfect.
My daily walk now led me, first about half a mile along the sandy beach, then through a
sago swamp over a causeway of very shaky poles to the village of the Tomōré people. Bey-
ond this was the forest with patches of new clearing, shady paths, and a considerable quant-
ity of felled timber. I found this a very fair collecting ground, especially for beetles. The
fallen trunks in the clearings abounded with golden Buprestidæ and curious Brenthidæ and
longicorns, while in the forest I found abundance of the smaller Curculionidæ, many longi-
corns, and some fine green Carabidæ.
