Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
different kinds in a day. My Bornean collections of this group exceeded five hundred spe-
cies.
My collection of butterflies was not large; but I obtained some rare and very handsome
insects, the most remarkable being the Ornithoptera Brookeana, one of the most elegant spe-
cies known. This beautiful creature has very long and pointed wings, almost resembling a
sphinx moth in shape. It is deep velvety black, with a curved band of spots of a brilliant
metallic-green colour extending across the wings from tip to tip, each spot being shaped ex-
actly like a small triangular feather, and having very much the effect of a row of the wing
coverts of the Mexican trogon laid upon black velvet. The only other marks are a broad
neck-collar of vivid crimson, and a few delicate white touches on the outer margins of the
hind wings. This species, which was then quite new and which I named after Sir James
Brooke, was very rare. It was seen occasionally flying swiftly in the clearings, and now and
then settling for an instant at puddles and muddy places, so that I only succeeded in captur-
ing two or three specimens. In some other parts of the country I was assured it was abund-
ant, and a good many specimens have been sent to England; but as yet all have been males,
and we are quite unable to conjecture what the female may be like, owing to the extreme
isolation of the species, and its want of close affinity to any other known insect.
One of the most curious and interesting reptiles which I met with in Borneo was a large
tree-frog, which was brought me by one of the Chinese workmen. He assured me that he
had seen it come down, in a slanting direction, from a high tree, as if it flew. On examining
it, I found the toes very long and fully webbed to their very extremity, so that when expan-
ded they offered a surface much larger than the body. The fore legs were also bordered by a
membrane, and the body was capable of considerable inflation. The back and limbs were of
a very deep shining green colour, the under surface and the inner toes yellow, while the
webs were black, rayed with yellow. The body was about four inches long, while the webs
of each hind foot, when fully expanded, covered a surface of four square inches, and the
webs of all the feet together about twelve square inches. As the extremities of the toes have
dilated discs for adhesion, showing the creature to be a true tree-frog, it is difficult to ima-
gine that this immense membrane of the toes can be for the purpose of swimming only, and
the account of the Chinaman, that it flew down from the tree, becomes more credible. This
is, I believe, the first instance known of a 'flying frog,' and it is very interesting to Darwini-
ans as showing, that the variability of the toes which have been already modified for pur-
poses of swimming and adhesive climbing, have been taken advantage of to enable an allied
species to pass through the air like the flying lizard. It would appear to be a new species of
