a native’s tobacco pouch. I t was quite a new species, and
had not'been found elsewhere than on this little island.
It is one of the Buprestidse, and has been named Cypho-
gastra ealepyga. ;
Each morning after an early breakfast I wandered by
myself; into the forest, where I found delightful occupation
in capturing the . large and handsome butterflies, which
were tolerably abundant, and most of them new to me ;
for I was now upon the confines of the Moluccas and New
Guinea,—a region the productions of which were then
among the most precious and rare in the cabinets of
Europe. Here my eyes were feasted for the first time with
splendid scarlet lories on the wing, as well as by the sight
of that most Imperial butterfly, the “ Priamus” of collectors,
or a closely allied species, but flying so high that I
did not succeed in capturing a specimen. One of them
was brought me in a bamboo, boxed up with a lot of
beetles, and of course torn to pieces. The principal drawback
of the place for a collector is the want of good paths,
and the dreadfully rugged character of the surface, requiring
the attention to be so continually directed to
securing a footing, as to make: it very difficult to capture
active winged things, who pass out of reach while one is
glancing to see that the next step may not plunge one into
a chasm of over a precipice. Another inconvenience is
that there'are no running streams, the rock being of so
porous a nature that the surface-water everywhere penetrates
its fissures;. at least such is the character of the
neighbourhood we visited, the only water being small
springs-trickling out close to the sea-beach.
In the forests of Ke, arboreal Liliacese and Pandanacese
abound, and give a character to the vegetation in the more
exposed rocky places. Flowers were scarce, and there
were not many orchids, but I noticed the fine white
butterfly-orchis, Phalaenopsis grandiflora, ' or .a species
closely allied to it. The freshness and vigour, of the
vegetation was very pleasing, and on such an arid rocky
surface was, a } sure indication of a perpetually humid
climate. Tall clean trunks, many of them buttressed, and
immense trees of the fig family, with aerial roots stretching
out and interlacing and matted together for fifty or a
hundred feet above the ground, were the characteristic
features; and there was an absence of thorny shrubs and
prickly rattans, which would have made these wilds very
pleasant to roam in, had it not been for the sharp honeycombed
rocks already alluded to. In damp places a fine
undergrowth of broad-leaved herbaceous plants was found,
about which swarmed little green lizards, with tails of the
most "heavenly blue,” twisting in and out among the
stalks and foliage so actively that I often caught glimpses
of their tails only, when they startled me by their resemblance
to small snakes. Almost the only sounds in these