and varied here than anywhere else in the Archipelago.
I first met with them on a cutting in the road, where
a hard clayey bank was partially overgrown with mosses
and small ferns. Here, I found running about, a small
olive-green species which never took flight; and more
rarely a fine purplish black wingless insect, which was
always found motionless in crevices, and was therefore
probably nocturnal. It appeared to me to form a new
genus. About the roads in the forest, I found the large
and handsome Cicindela heros, which I had before obtained
sparingly at Macassar ; but it was in the mountain torrent
of the ravine itself that I got my finest things. On dead
trunks overhanging the water and on the banks and foliage,
I obtained three very pretty species of Cicindela, quite
distinct in size, form, and colour, but having an almost
identical pattern of pale spots. I also found a single
specimen of a most curious species with very long antennae.
But my finest discovery here was the Cicindela gloriosa,
which I found on mossy stones just rising above the water.
After obtaining my first specimen of this elegant insect, I
used to walk up the stream, watching carefully every
moss-covered rock and stone. It was rather shy, and
would often lead me a long chase from stone to stone,
becoming invisible every time it settled on the damp
moss, owing to its rich velvety green colour. On some
days I could only catch a few glimpses of it, on others I
got a single specimen, and on a few occasions two, but
never without a more or less active pursuit. This and
several other species I never saw but in this one ravine.
Among the people here I saw specimens of several types,
which, with the peculiarities of the languages, gives me
some notion of their probable origin. A striking illustration
of the low state of civilization of these people till
quite recently, is to be found in the great diversity of their
languages. Villages three or four miles apart have separate
dialects, and each group of three or four such villages
has a distinct language quite unintelligible to all the rest ;
so that, till the recent introduction of Malay by the Missionaries,
there must have been a bar to all free communication.
These languages offer many peculiarities. They
contain a Celebes-Malay element and a Papuan element,
along with some radical peculiarities found also in the
languages of the Siau and Sanguir islands further north,
and therefore probably derived from the Philippine Islands.
Physical characters correspond. There are some of the less
civilized tribes which have semi-Papuan features and hair,
while in some villages the true Celebes or Bugis physiognomy
prevails. The plateau of Tondano is chiefly
inhabited by people nearly as white as the Chinese, and
with very pleasing semi-European features. The people
of Siau and Sanguir much resemble these, and I believe
them to be perhaps immigrants from some of the islands