The Next Two Days Were So Wet And Windy That There Was No Going Out; But On The Succeeding One The Sun Shone Brightly, And I Had The Good Fortune To Capture One Of The Most Magnificent Insects The World Contains, The Great Bird-Winged Butterfly, Ornithoptera Poseidon.

I trembled with excitement as I saw it coming majestically towards me, and could hardly believe I had really

Succeeded in my stroke till I had taken it out of the net and was gazing, lost in admiration, at the velvet black and brilliant green of its wings, seven inches across, its bolder body, and crimson breast. It is true I had seen similar insects in cabinets at home, but it is quite another thing to capture such oneself-to feel it struggling between one's fingers, and to gaze upon its fresh and living beauty, a bright gem shirring out amid the silent gloom of a dark and tangled forest. The village of Dobbo held that evening at least one contented man.

Jan. 26th. - Having now been here a fortnight, I began to understand a little of the place and its peculiarities. Praus continually arrived, and the merchant population increased almost daily. Every two or three days a fresh house was opened, and the necessary repairs made. In every direction men were bringing in poles, bamboos, rattans, and the leaves of the nipa palm to construct or repair the walls, thatch, doors, and shutters of their houses, which they do with great celerity. Some of the arrivals were Macassar men or Bugis, but more from the small island of Goram, at the east end of Ceram, whose inhabitants are the petty traders of the far East. Then the natives of Aru come in from the other side of the islands (called here "blakang tana," or "back of the country") with the produce they have collected during the preceding six months, and which they now sell to the traders, to some of whom they are most likely in debt.

Almost all, or I may safely say all, the new arrivals pay me a visit, to see with their own eyes the unheard-of phenomenon of a person come to stay at Dobbo who does not trade! They have their own ideas of the uses that may possibly be made of stuffed birds, beetles, and shells which are not the right shells - that is, "mother-of-pearl." They every day bring me dead and broken shells, such as l can pick up by hundreds on the beach, and seem quite puzzled and distressed when I decline them. If, however, there are any snail shells among a lot, I take them, and ask for more - a principle of selection so utterly unintelligible to them, that they give it up in despair, or solve the problem by imputing hidden medical virtue to those which they see me preserve so carefully.

These traders are all of the Malay race, or a mixture of which Malay is the chef ingredient, with the exception of a few Chinese.

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