In Sarawak, virgin rainforest extended for hundreds of miles in every direction
over the coast, plains and mountains. Wallace found a perfect location for collecting
beetles and butterflies on the Simunjan River. Here, Chinese and Dayak labourers
were clearing the forest to develop a coal mine and were cutting a swath through the
jungle for a railway line to transport the coal to the river. Everywhere there was cut
timber, sawdust and bark lying on the ground, rich grounds for collecting beetles and
the butterflies attracted to the sunny clearings. In one memorable day he collected
seventy-six different species of beetle of which thirty-four were new to Wallace. The
butterflies were spectacular, including this magnificent specimen:
This beautiful creature has very long and pointed wings, almost resembling a sphinx moth
in shape. It is deep velvety black, with a curved band of spots of a brilliant metallic green
colour extending across the wings from tip to tip, each spot being shaped exactly like a
small triangular feather, and having very much the effect of a row of the wing coverts of
the Mexican trogon laid upon black velvet. The only other marks are a broad neck-collar
of vivid crimson, and a few delicate white touches on the outer margins of the hind wings.
This species, which was then quite new, and which I named after Sir James Brooke, was
very rare.131The Rajah Brooke’s birdwing or Trogonoptera brookianaAlfred Russel Wallace – In Singapore and Borneo