with fowls, eggs, and the birds we shot ourselves, and buffalo beef
about once a fortnight, kept my larder sufficiently well supplied.
Every bit of flatland was cleared and used as rice-fields, and on the
lower slopes of many of the hills tobacco and vegetables were grown.
Most of the slopes are covered with huge blocks of rock, very fatiguing
to scramble over, while a number of the hills are so precipitous as to
be quite inaccessible. These circumstances, combined with the excessive
drought, were very unfavourable for my pursuits. Birds were scarce, and
I got but few new to me. Insects were tolerably plentiful, but unequal.
Beetles, usually so numerous and interesting, were exceedingly scarce,
some of the families being quite absent and others only represented
by very minute species. The Flies and Bees, on the other hand, were
abundant, and of these I daily obtained new and interesting species. The
rare and beautiful Butterflies of Celebes were the chief object of my
search, and I found many species altogether new to me, but they were
generally so active and shy as to render their capture a matter of great
difficulty. Almost the only good place for them was in the dry beds of
the streams in the forest, where, at damp places, muddy pools, or even
on the dry rocks, all sorts of insects could be found. In these rocky
forests dwell some of the finest butterflies in the world. Three species
of Ornithoptera, measuring seven or eight inches across the wings, and
beautifully marked with spots or masses of satiny yellow on a black
ground, wheel through the thickets with a strong sailing flight. About
the damp places are swarms of the beautiful blue-banded Papilios,
miletus and telephus, the superb golden green P. macedon, and the rare
little swallow-tail Papilio rhesus, of all of which, though very active,
I succeeded in capturing fine series of specimens.
I have rarely enjoyed myself more than during my residence here. As I
sat taking my coffee at six in the morning, rare birds would often
be seen on some tree close by, when I would hastily sally out in my
slippers, and perhaps secure a prize I had been seeking after for weeks.
The great hornbills of Celebes (Buceros cassidix) would often come with
loud-flapping wings, and perch upon a lofty tree just in front of me;
and the black baboon-monkeys, Cynopithecus nigrescens, often stared down
in astonishment at such an intrusion into their domains while at
night herds of wild pigs roamed about the house, devouring refuse, and
obliging us to put away everything eatable or breakable from our little
cooking-house. A few minutes' search on the fallen trees around my house
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