preserved in clear spirit in hundreds of glass jars, and the shells were arranged in
large shallow pith boxes lined with paper, every specimen being fastened down
with thread. I roughly estimated that there were nearly a thousand different kinds
of shells, and perhaps ten thousand specimens, while the collection of Amboyna
fishes was nearly perfect.
On the 4th of January I left Amboyna for Ternate; but two years later, in
October 1859, I again visited it after my residence in Menado, and stayed a
month in the town in a small house which I hired for the sake of assorting and
packing up a large and varied collection which I had brought with me from
North Celebes, Ternate, and Gilolo. I was obliged to do this because the mail
steamer would have come the following month by way of Amboyna to Ternate,
and I should have been delayed two months before I could have reached the
former place. I then paid my first visit to Ceram, and on returning to prepare for
my second more complete exploration of that island, I stayed (much against my
will) two months at Paso, on the isthmus which connects the two portions of the
island of Amboyna. This village is situated on the eastern side of the isthmus, on
sandy ground, with a very pleasant view over the sea to the island of Harúka. On
the Amboyna side of the isthmus there is a small river which has been continued
by a shallow canal to within thirty yards of high-water mark on the other side.
Across this small space, which is sandy and but slightly elevated, all small boats
and praus can be easily dragged, and all the smaller traffic from Ceram and the
islands of Saparúa and Harúka, passes through Paso. The canal is not continued
quite through, merely because every spring-tide would throw up just such a
sand-bank as now exists.
I had been informed that the fine butterfly Ornithoptera priamus was plentiful
here, as well as the racquet-tailed kingfisher and the ring-necked lory. I found,
however, that I had missed the time for the former, and birds of all kinds were
very scarce, although I obtained a few good ones, including one or two of the
above-mentioned rarities. I was much pleased to get here the fine long-armed
chafer, Euchirus longimanus. This extraordinary insect is rarely or never
captured except when it comes to drink the sap of the sugar palms, where it is
found by the natives when they go early in the morning to take away the
bamboos which have been filled during the night. For some time one or two
were brought me every day, generally alive. They are sluggish insects, and pull
themselves lazily along by means of their immense forelegs. A figure of this and
other Moluccan beetles is given in the 27th CHAPTER of this work.
I was kept at Paso by an inflammatory eruption, brought on by the constant
attacks of small acari-like harvest-bugs, for which the forests of Ceram are