In Temperate Climates There Is A Tolerable Uniformity In The Distribution Of Insects Over Those Parts Of A Country In Which There Is A Similarity In The Vegetation, Any Deficiency Being Easily Accounted For By The Absence Of Wood Or Uniformity Of Surface.

The traveller hastily passing through such a country can at once pick out a collecting ground which will afford him a fair notion of its entomology. Here the case is different.

There are certain requisites of a good collecting ground which can only be ascertained to exist by some days' search in the vicinity of each village. In some places there is no virgin forest, as at Djilolo and Sahoe; in others there are no open pathways or clearings, as here. At Batchian there are only two tolerable collecting places, - the road to the coal mines, and the new clearings made by the Tomóre people, the latter being by far the most productive. I believe the fact to be that insects are pretty uniformly distributed over these countries (where the forests have not been cleared away), and are so scarce in any one spot that searching for them is almost useless. If the forest is all cleared away, almost all the insects disappear with it; but when small clearings and paths are made, the fallen trees in various stages of drying and decay, the rotting leaves, the loosening bark and the fungoid growths upon it, together with the flowers that appear in much greater abundance where the light is admitted, are so many attractions to the insects for miles around, and cause a wonderful accumulation of species and individuals.

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