The Next Clay I Went
Again To The Same Shrub And Succeeded In Catching A Female, And
The Day After A Fine Male.
I found it to be as I had expected, a
perfectly new and most magnificent species, and one of the most
gorgeously coloured butterflies in the world.
Fine specimens of
the male are more than seven inches across the wings, which are
velvety black and fiery orange, the latter colour replacing the
green of the allied species. The beauty and brilliancy of this
insect are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can
understand the intense excitement I experienced when I at length
captured it. On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious
wings, my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my
head, and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in
apprehension of immediate death. I had a headache the rest of the
day, so great was the excitement produced by what will appear to
most people a very inadequate cause.
I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, but
this grand capture determined me to stay on till I obtained a
good series of the new butterfly, which I have since named
Ornithoptera croesus. The Mussaenda bush was an admirable place,
which I could visit every day on my way to the forest; and as it
was situated in a dense thicket of shrubs and creepers, I set my
man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so that I could easily
get at any insect that might visit it. Afterwards, finding that
it was often necessary to wait some time there, I had a little
seat put up under a tree by the side of it, where I came every
day to eat my lunch, and thus had half an hour's watching about
noon, besides a chance as I passed it in the morning. In this way
I obtained on an average one specimen a day for a long time, but
more than half of these were females, and more than half the
remainder worn or broken specimens, so that I should not have
obtained many perfect males had I not found another station for
them.
As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man Lahi
with a net on purpose to search for them, as they had also been
seen at some flowering trees on the beach, and I promised him
half a day's wages extra for every good specimen he could catch.
After a day or two he brought me two very fair specimens, and
told me he had caught them in the bed of a large rocky stream
that descends from the mountains to the sea abort a mile below
the village. They flew down this river, settling occasionally on
stones and rocks in the water, and he was obliged to wade up it
or jump from rock to rock to get at them. I went with him one
day, but found that the stream was far too rapid and the stones
too slippery for me to do anything, so I left it entirely to him,
and all the rest of the time we stayed in Batchian he used to be
out all day, generally bringing me one, and on good days two or
three specimens. I was thus able to bring away with me more than
a hundred of both sexes, including perhaps twenty very fine
males, though not more than five or six that were absolutely
perfect.
My daily walk now led me, first about half a mile along the sandy
beach, then through a sago swamp over a causeway of very shaky
poles to the village of the Tomore people. Beyond this was the
forest with patches of new clearing, shady paths, and a
considerable quantity of felled timber. I found this a very fair
collecting ground, especially for beetles. The fallen trunks in
the clearings abounded with golden Buprestidae and curious
Brenthidae, and longicorns, while in the forest I found abundance
of the smaller Curculionidae, many longicorns, and some fine
green Carabidae.
Butterflies were not abundant, but I obtained a few more of the
fine blue Papilio, and a number of beautiful little Lycaenidae,
as well as a single specimen of the very rare Papilio Wallacei,
of which I had taken the hitherto unique specimen in the Aru
Islands.
The most interesting birds I obtained here, were the beautiful
blue kingfisher, Todiramphus diops; the fine green and purple
doves, Ptilonopus superbus and P. iogaster, and several new birds
of small size. My shooters still brought me in specimens of the
Semioptera Wallacei, and I was greatly excited by the positive
statements of several of the native hunters that another species
of this bird existed, much handsomer and more remarkable. They
declared that the plumage was glossy black, with metallic green
breast as in my species, but that the white shoulder plumes were
twice as long, and hung down far below the body of the bird. They
declared that when hunting pigs or deer far in the forest they
occasionally saw this bird, but that it was rare. I immediately
offered twelve guilders (a pound) for a specimen; but all in
vain, and I am to this day uncertain whether such a bird exists.
Since I left, the German naturalist, Dr. Bernstein, stayed many
months in the island with a large staff of hunters collecting for
the Leyden Museum; and as he was not more successful than myself,
we must consider either that the bird is very rare, or is
altogether a myth.
Batchian is remarkable as being the most eastern point on the
globe inhabited by any of the Quadrumana. A large black baboon-
monkey (Cynopithecus nigrescens) is abundant in some parts of the
forest. This animal has bare red callosities, and a rudimentary
tail about an inch long - a mere fleshy tubercle, which may be
very easily overlooked.
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