patch of forest had been cleared away, and several rude
houses erected, in which were residing Mr. Coulson the
engineer, and a number of Chinese workmen. I was at
first kindly accommodated in Mr. Coulson’s house, but
finding the spot very suitable for me and offering great
facilities for collecting, I had a small house of two rooms
and a verandah built for myself. Here I remained nearly
nine months, and made an immense collection of insects,
to which class of animals I devoted my chief attention,
owing to the circumstances being especially favourable.
In the tropics a large proportion of the insects of all
orders, and especially of the large and favourite group
of beetles, are more or less dependent on vegetation, and
particularly on timber, bark, and leaves in various stages
of decay. In the untouched virgin forest, the insects
which frequent such situations are scattered over an
immense extent of country, at spots where trees have
fallen through decay and old age, or have succumbed to
the fury of the tempest; and twenty square miles of
country may not contain so many fallen and decayed trees
as are to be found in any small clearing. The quantity
and the variety of beetles and of many other insects that
can be collected at a given time in any tropical locality,
will depend, first upon the immediate vicinity of a great
extent of virgin forest, and secondly upon the quantity of
trees that for some months past have been, and which are
still being cut down, and left to dry and decay upon the
ground. Now, during my whole twelve years’ collecting
in the western and eastern tropics, I never enjoyed such
advantages in this respect as at the Simunjon coal-works.
For several months from twenty to fifty Chinamen and
Dyaks were employed almost exclusively in clearing a
large space in the forest, and in making a wide opening for
a railroad to the Sadong River, two miles distant. Besides
this, sawpits were established at various points in the
jungle, and large trees were felled to be cut up into beams
and planks. For hundreds of miles in every direction a
magnificent forest extended over plain and mountain, rock
and morass, and I arrived at the spot just as the rains
began to diminish and the daily sunshine to increase; a
time which I have always found the most favourable
season for collecting. The number of openings and sunny
places and of pathways, were also an attraction to wasps
and butterflies ; and by paying a cent each for all insects
that were brought me, I obtained from the Dyaks and the
Chinamen many fine locusts and Phasmidse, as well as
numbers of handsome beetles.
When I arrived at the mines, on the 14th of March,
I had collected in the four preceding months, 320 different
kinds of beetles. In less than a fortnight I had doubled
this number, an average of about 24 new species every
day. On one day I collected 76 different kinds, of which