About This Time The Weather Set
In Pretty Fine, But Neither Birds Nor Insects Became Much More
Abundant, And New Birds -Were Very Scarce.
None of the Birds of
Paradise except the common one were ever met with, and we were
still searching in vain for several of the fine birds which
Lesson had obtained here.
Insects were tolerably abundant, but
were not on the average so fine as those of Amboyna, and I
reluctantly came to the conclusion that Dorey was not a good
collecting locality. Butterflies were very scarce, arid were
mostly the same as those which I had obtained at Aru.
Among the insects of other orders, the most curious and novel
were a group of horned flies, of which I obtained four distinct
species, settling on fallen trees and decaying trunks. These
remarkable insects, which have been described by Mr. W. W.
Saunders as a new genus, under the name of Elaphomia or deer-
flies, are about half an inch long, slender-bodied, and with very
long legs, which they draw together so as to elevate their bodies
high above the surface they are standing upon. The front pair of
legs are much shorter, and these are often stretched directly
forwards, so as to resemble antenna. The horns spring from
beneath the eye, and seem to be a prolongation of the lower part
of the orbit. In the largest and most singular species, named
Elaphomia cervicornis or the stag-horned deer-fly, these horns
are nearly as long as the body, having two branches, with two
small snags near their bifurcation, so as to resemble the horns
of a stag.
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