Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
amus' of collectors, or a closely allied species, but flying so high that I did not succeed in
capturing a specimen. One of them was brought me in a bamboo, boxed up with a lot of
beetles, and of course torn to pieces. The principal drawback of the place for a collector is
the want of good paths, and the dreadfully rugged character of the surface, requiring the at-
tention to be so continually directed to securing a footing, as to make it very difficult to cap-
ture active winged things, who pass out of reach while one is glancing to see that the next
step may not plunge one into a chasm or over a precipice. Another inconvenience is that
there are no running streams, the rock being of so porous a nature that the surface-water
everywhere penetrates its fissures; at least such is the character of the neighbourhood we
visited, the only water being small springs trickling out close to the sea-beach.
In the forests of Ké, arboreal Liliaceæ and Pandanaceæ abound, and give a character to
the vegetation in the more exposed rocky places. Flowers were scarce, and there were not
many orchids, but I noticed the fine white butterfly-orchis, Phalænopsis grandiflora, or a
species closely allied to it. The freshness and vigour of the vegetation was very pleasing,
and on such an arid rocky surface was a sure indication of a perpetually humid climate. Tall
clean trunks, many of them buttressed, and immense trees of the fig family, with aërial roots
stretching out and interlacing and matted together for fifty or a hundred feet above the
ground, were the characteristic features; and there was an absence of thorny shrubs and
prickly rattans, which would have made these wilds very pleasant to roam in, had it not been
for the sharp honeycombed rocks already alluded to. In damp places a fine undergrowth of
broad-leaved herbaceous plants was found, about which swarmed little green lizards, with
tails of the most 'heavenly blue,' twisting in and out among the stalks and foliage so act-
ively that I often caught glimpses of their tails only, when they startled me by their resemb-
lance to small snakes. Almost the only sounds in these primæval woods proceeded from two
birds, the red lories, who utter shrill screams like most of the parrot tribe, and the large
green nutmeg-pigeon, whose voice is either a loud and deep boom, like two notes struck
upon a very large gong, or sometimes a harsh toad-like croak, altogether peculiar and re-
markable. Only two quadrupeds are said by the natives to inhabit the island—a wild pig and
a Cuscus, or Eastern opossum, of neither of which could I obtain specimens.
The insects were more abundant, and very interesting. Of butterflies I caught thirty-five
species, most of them new to me, and many quite unknown in European collections. Among
them was the fine yellow and black Papilio euchenor, of which but few specimens had been
previously captured, and several other handsome butterflies of large size, as well as some
beautiful little 'blues,' and some brilliant day-flying moths. The beetle tribe were less
abundant, yet I obtained some very fine and rare species. On the leaves of a slender shrub in
