Date (1855) No. of Moths Remarks
Dec. 13th 1 Fine; starlight.
14th 75 Drizzly and fog.
15th 41 Showery; cloudy.
16th 158 (120 species.) Steady rain.
17th 82 Wet; rather moonlight.
18th 9 Fine; moonlight.
19th 2 Fine; clear moonlight.
31st 200 (130 species.) Dark and windy;
heavy rain.
Date (1856)
Jan. 1st 185 Very wet.
2d 68 Cloudy and showers.
3d 50 Cloudy.
4th 12 Fine.
5th 10 Fine.
6th 8 Very fine.
7th 8 Very fine.
8th 10 Fine.
9th 36 Showery.
10th 30 Showery.
11th 260 Heavy rain all night, and dark.
12th 56 Showery.
13th 44 Showery; some moonlight.
14th 4 Fine; moonlight.
15th 24 Rain; moonlight.
16th 6 Showers; moonlight.
17th 6 Showers; moonlight.
18th 1 Showers; moonlight.
Total 1,386It thus appears that on twenty-six nights I collected 1,386 moths, but that more
than 800 of them were collected on four very wet and dark nights. My success
here led me to hope that, by similar arrangements, I might on every island be
able to obtain an abundance of these insects; but, strange to say, during the six
succeeding years, I was never once able to make any collections at all
approaching those at Sarawak. The reason for this I can pretty well understand to
be owing to the absence of some one or other essential condition that were here
all combined. Sometimes the dry season was the hindrance; more frequently
residence in a town or village not close to virgin forest, and surrounded by other
houses whose lights were a counter-attraction; still more frequently residence in
a dark palm-thatched house, with a lofty roof, in whose recesses every moth was
lost the instant it entered. This last was the greatest drawback, and the real
reason why I never again was able to make a collection of moths; for I never
afterwards lived in a solitary jungle-house with a low boarded and whitewashed
verandah, so constructed as to prevent insects at once escaping into the upper
part of the house, quite out of reach.
After my long experience, my numerous failures, and my one success, I feel