characteristic of the district. On the slope of the hill near its foot a patch of forest
had been cleared away, and several rude houses erected, in which were residing
Mr. Coulson the engineer, and a number of Chinese workmen. I was at first
kindly accommodated in Mr. Coulson's house, but finding the spot very suitable
for me and offering great facilities for collecting, I had a small house of two
rooms and a verandah built for myself. Here I remained nearly nine months, and
made an immense collection of insects, to which class of animals I devoted my
chief attention, owing to the circumstances being especially favourable.
In the tropics a large proportion of the insects of all orders, and especially of
the large and favourite group of beetles, are more or less dependent on
vegetation, and particularly on timber, bark, and leaves in various stages of
decay. In the untouched virgin forest, the insects which frequent such situations
are scattered over an immense extent of country, at spots where trees have fallen
through decay and old age, or have succumbed to the fury of the tempest; and
twenty square miles of country may not contain so many fallen and decayed
trees as are to be found in any small clearing. The quantity and the variety of
beetles and of many other insects that can be collected at a given time in any
tropical locality, will depend, first upon the immediate vicinity of a great extent
of virgin forest, and secondly upon the quantity of trees that for some months
past have been, and which are still being cut down, and left to dry and decay
upon the ground.
Now, during my whole twelve years' collecting in the western and eastern
tropics, I never enjoyed such advantages in this respect as at the Simunjon
coalworks. For several months from twenty to fifty Chinamen and Dyaks were
employed almost exclusively in clearing a large space in the forest, and in
making a wide opening for a railroad to the Sadong River, two miles distant.
Besides this, sawpits were established at various points in the jungle, and large
trees were felled to be cut up into beams and planks. For hundreds of miles in
every direction a magnificent forest extended over plain and mountain, rock and
morass, and I arrived at the spot just as the rains began to diminish and the daily
sunshine to increase; a time which I have always found the most favourable
season for collecting. The number of openings, sunny places, and pathways were
also an attraction to wasps and butterflies; and by paying a cent each for all
insects that were brought me, I obtained from the Dyaks and the Chinamen many
fine locusts and Phasmidae, as well as numbers of handsome beetles.
When I arrived at the mines, on the 14th of March, I had collected in the four
preceding months, 320 different kinds of beetles. In less than a fortnight I had
doubled this number, an average of about 24 new species every day. On one day