stone through which light could be seen in every direction.
From these mountains to the sea extends a perfectly flat alluvial plain, with no
indication that water would accumulate at a great depth beneath it, yet the
authorities at Macassar have spent much money in boring a well a thousand feet
deep in hope of getting a supply of water like that obtained by the Artesian wells
in the London and Paris basins. It is not to be wondered at that the attempt was
unsuccessful.
Returning to my forest hut, I continued my daily search after birds and insects.
The weather, however, became dreadfully hot and dry, every drop of water
disappearing from the pools and rock-holes, and with it the insects which
frequented them. Only one group remained unaffected by the intense drought;
the Diptera, or two-winged flies, continued as plentifully as ever, and on these I
was almost compelled to concentrate my attention for a week or two, by which
means I increased my collection of that Order to about two hundred species. I
also continued to obtain a few new birds, among which were two or three kinds
of small hawks and falcons, a beautiful brush-tongued paroquet, Trichoglossus
ornatus, and a rare black and white crow, Corvus advena.
At length, about the middle of October, after several gloomy days, down came
a deluge of rain which continued to fall almost every afternoon, showing that the
early part of the wet season had commenced. I hoped now to get a good harvest
of insects, and in some respects I was not disappointed. Beetles became much
more numerous, and under a thick bed of leaves that had accumulated on some
rocks by the side of a forest stream, I found an abundance of Carabidae, a family
generally scarce in the tropics. The butterflies, however, disappeared. Two of my
servants were attacked with fever, dysentery, and swelled feet, just at the time
that the third had left me, and for some days they both lay groaning in the house.
When they got a little better I was attacked myself, and as my stores were nearly
finished and everything was getting very damp, I was obliged to prepare for my
return to Macassar, especially as the strong westerly winds would render the
passage in a small open boat disagreeable, if not dangerous.
Since the rains began, numbers of huge millipedes, as thick as one's finger and
eight or ten inches long, crawled about everywhere—in the paths, on trees, about
the house—and one morning when I got up I even found one in my bed! They
were generally of a dull lead colour or of a deep brick red, and were very nasty-
looking things to be coming everywhere in one's way, although quite harmless.
Snakes too began to show themselves. I killed two of a very abundant species—
big-headed, and of a bright green colour, which lie coiled up on leaves and
shrubs and can scarcely be seen until one is close upon them. Brown snakes got