Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
stemmed, pinnate-leaved species which recall the Uauassú (Attalea speciosa) of the
Amazon, but which I had hitherto rarely met with in the Malayan islands.
In animal life the immense number and variety of spiders and of lizards were circum-
stances that recalled the prolific regions of South America, more especially the abundance
and varied colours of the little jumping spiders which abound on flowers and foliage, and
are often perfect gems of beauty. The web-spinning species were also more numerous than I
had ever seen them, and were a great annoyance, stretching their nets across the footpaths
just about the height of my face; and the threads composing these are so strong and glutin-
ous as to require much trouble to free oneself from them. Then their inhabitants, great
yellow-spotted monsters with bodies two inches long, and legs in proportion, are not pleas-
ant things to run one's nose against while pursuing some gorgeous butterfly, or gazing aloft
in search of some strange-voiced bird. I soon found it necessary not only to brush away the
web, but also to destroy the spinner; for at first, having cleared the path one day, I found the
next morning that the industrious insects had spread their nets again in the very same places.
The lizards were equally striking by their numbers, variety, and the situations in which
they were found. The beautiful blue-tailed species so abundant in Ké, was not seen here.
The Aru lizards are more varied but more sombre in their colours—shades of green, grey,
brown, and even black, being very frequently seen. Every shrub and herbaceous plant was
alive with them, every rotten trunk or dead branch served as a station for some of these act-
ive little insect-hunters, who, I fear, to satisfy their gross appetites, destroy many gems of
the insect world, which would feast the eyes and delight the heart of our more discriminat-
ing entomologists. Another curious feature of the jungle here was the multitude of sea-shells
everywhere met with on the ground and high up on the branches and foliage, all inhabited
by hermit-crabs, who forsake the beach to wander in the forest. I have actually seen a spider
carrying away a good-sized shell and devouring its (probably juvenile) tenant. On the beach,
which I had to walk along every morning to reach the forest, these creatures swarmed by
thousands. Every dead shell, from the largest to the most minute, was appropriated by them.
They formed small social parties of ten or twenty around bits of stick or seaweed, but dis-
persed hurriedly at the sound of approaching footsteps. After a windy night, that nasty-look-
ing Chinese delicacy the sea-slug was sometimes thrown up on the beach, which was at
such times thickly strewn with some of the most beautiful shells that adorn our cabinets,
along with fragments and masses of coral and strange sponges, of which I picked up more
than twenty different sorts. In many cases sponge and coral are so much alike that it is only
on touching them that they can be distinguished. Quantities of seaweed, too, are thrown up;
