cause an entire change.
Now this exactly corresponds with the time we should require since the
temperate forms of plants entered Java. These are now almost distinct
species, but the changed conditions under which they are now forced to
exist, and the probability of some of them having since died out on the
continent of India, sufficiently accounts for the Javanese species being
different.

In my more special pursuits, I had very little success upon the
mountain--owing, perhaps, to the excessively unpropitious weather and
the shortness of my stay. At from 7,000 to 8,000 feet elevation, I
obtained one of almost lovely of the small Fruit pigeons (Ptilonopus
roseicollis), whose entire head and neck are of an exquisite rosy pink
colour, contrasting finely with its otherwise blue plumage; and on the
very summit, feeding on the ground among the strawberries that have
been planted there, I obtained a dull-coloured thrush, with the form
and habits of a starling (Turdus fumidus). Insects were almost entirely
absent, owing no doubt to the extreme dampness, and I did not get a
single butterfly the whole trip; yet I feel sure that, during the
dry season, a week's residence on this mountain would well repay the
collector in every department of natural history.

After my return to Toego, I endeavoured to find another locality to
collect in, and removed to a coffee-plantation some miles to the north,
and tried in succession higher and lower stations on the mountain; but,
I never succeeded in obtaining insects in any abundance and birds were
far less plentiful than on the Megamendong Mountain. The weather now
became more rainy than ever, and as the wet season seemed to have set
in in earnest, I returned to Batavia, packed up and sent off my
collections, and left by steamer on November 1st for Banca and Sumatra.

CHAPTER VIII. SUMATRA.

(NOVEMBER 1861 to JANUARY 1862.)

The mail steamer from Batavia to Singapore took me to Muntok (or as on
English maps, "Minto"), the chief town and port of Banca. Here I stayed
a day or two, until I could obtain a boat to take me across the straits,
and all the river to Palembang. A few walks into the country showed me
that it was very hilly, and full of granitic and laterite rocks, with a
dry and stunted forest vegetation; and I could find very few insects.
A good-sized open sailing-boat took me across to the mouth of the
Palembang river where, at a fishing village, a rowing-boat was hired to
t