irely to him, and all
the rest of the time we stayed in Batchian he used to be out all day,
generally bringing me one, and on good days two or three specimens. I
was thus able to bring away with me more than a hundred of both sexes,
including perhaps twenty very fine males, though not more than five or
six that were absolutely perfect.

My daily walk now led me, first about half a mile along the sandy beach,
then through a sago swamp over a causeway of very shaky poles to the
village of the Tomore people. Beyond this was the forest with patches of
new clearing, shady paths, and a considerable quantity of felled timber.
I found this a very fair collecting ground, especially for beetles.
The fallen trunks in the clearings abounded with golden Buprestidae
and curious Brenthidae, and longicorns, while in the forest I found
abundance of the smaller Curculionidae, many longicorns, and some fine
green Carabidae.

Butterflies were not abundant, but I obtained a few more of the fine
blue Papilio, and a number of beautiful little Lycaenidae, as well as a
single specimen of the very rare Papilio Wallacei, of which I had taken
the hitherto unique specimen in the Aru Islands.

The most interesting birds I obtained here, were the beautiful blue
kingfisher, Todiramphus diops; the fine green and purple doves,
Ptilonopus superbus and P. iogaster, and several new birds of small
size. My shooters still brought me in specimens of the Semioptera
Wallacei, and I was greatly excited by the positive statements of
several of the native hunters that another species of this bird existed,
much handsomer and more remarkable. They declared that the plumage was
glossy black, with metallic green breast as in my species, but that the
white shoulder plumes were twice as long, and hung down far below the
body of the bird. They declared that when hunting pigs or deer far in
the forest they occasionally saw this bird, but that it was rare. I
immediately offered twelve guilders (a pound) for a specimen; but all in
vain, and I am to this day uncertain whether such a bird exists. Since
I left, the German naturalist, Dr. Bernstein, stayed many months in the
island with a large staff of hunters collecting for the Leyden Museum;
and as he was not more successful than myself, we must consider either
that the bird is very rare, or is altogether a myth.

Batchian is remarkable as being the most eastern point on the globe
inhabited by any of the Quadrumana. A la