that we can obtain with any regularity are fish and cockles of very good quality; and to supply our daily wants it is absolutely necessary to be always provided with four articles -tobacco, knives, sago-cakes, and Dutch copper doits-because when the particular thing asked for is not forthcoming, the fish pass on to the next house, and we may go that day without a dinner. It is curious to see the baskets and buckets used here. The cockles are brought in large volute shells, probably the Cymbium ducale, while gigantic helmetshells, a species of Cassis, suspended by a rattan handle, form the vessels in which fresh wa er is daily carried past my door. It is painful to a naturalist to see these splendid shells with their inner whorls ruthlessly broken away to fit them for their ignoble use.

My collections, however, got on but slowly, owing to the unexpectedly bad weather, violent winds, with heavy showers, having been so continuous as only to give me four good collecting-days out of the first sixteen I spent here. Yet enough had been collected to show me that with time and fine weather I might expect to do something good. From the natives I obtained some very fine insects and a few pretty land-shells; and of the small number of birds yet shot more than half were known New Guinea species, and therefore certainly rare in European collections, while the remainder were probably new. In one respect my hopes seemed doomed to be disappointed. I had anticipated the pleasure of myself preparing fine specimens of the birds of paradise, but I now learned that they are all at this season out of plumage, and that it is in September and October that they have the long plumes of yellow silky feathers in full perfection. As all the praus return in July, I should not be able to spend that season in Aru without remaining another whole year, which was out of the question. I was informed, however, that the small red species, the "King-Bird of Paradise," retains its plumage at all seasons, and this I might therefore hope to get.

As I became familiar with the forest scenery of the island, I perceived it to possess some characteristic features that distinguished it from that of Borneo and Malacca, while, what is very singular and interesting, it recalled to my mind the half-forgotten impressions of the forests of Equatorial Amer

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ica. For example, the palms were much more abundant than I had generally found them in the East, more generally mingled with the other vegetation, more varied in form and aspect, and presenting some of those lofty and majestic smooth-stemmed, pinnate-leaved species which recall the Uauassú (Attalea speciosa) of the Amazon, but which I had hitherto rarely met with in the Malayan Islands.

In animal life the immense number and variety of spiders and of lizards were circumstances that recalled the prolific regions of South America, more especially the abundance and varied colors of the little jumping spiders which abound on flowers and foliage, and are often perfect gems of beauty. The web-spinning species were also more numerous than I had ever seen them, and were a great annoyance, stretching their nets across the footpaths just about the height of my face; and the threads composing these are so strong and glutinous as require much trouble to free one's self from them. Then their inhabitants, great yellow-spotted monsters with bodies two inches long, and legs in proportion, are not pleasant things to run one's nose against while pursuing some gorgeous butterfly, or gazing aloft in search of some strangevoiced bird. I soon found it necessary not only to brush away the web, but also to destroy the spinner; for at first, having cleared the path one day, I found the next morning that the industrious insects had spread their nets again in the very same places.

The lizards were equally striking by their numbers, variety, and the situations in which they were found. The beautiful blue-tailed species so abundant in Ké was not seen here. The Aru lizards are more varied, but more sombre in their colors-shades of green, gray, brown, and even black being very frequently seen. Every shrub and herbaceous plant. was alive with them, every rotten trunk or dead branch served as a station for some of these active little insect-hunters, who, I fear, to satisfy their gross appetites, destroy many gems of the insect world, which would feast the eyes and delight the heart of our more discriminating entomologists. Another curious feature of the jungle here was the multitude of sea-shells everywhere met with on the ground and high up on the branches and foliage, all inhabited by hermit

crabs, who forsake the beach to wander in the forest. I have actually seen a spider carrying away a good-sized shell, and devouring its (probably juvenile) tenant. On the beach, which I had to walk along every morning to reach the forest, these creatures swarmed by thousands. Every dead shell, from the largest to the most minute, was appropriated by them. They formed small social parties of ten or twenty around bits of stick or sea-weed, but dispersed hurriedly at the sound of approaching footsteps. After a windy night, that nasty-looking Chinese delicacy the sea-slug was sometimes thrown up on the beach, which was at such times thickly strewn with some of the most beautiful shells that adorn our cabinets, along with fragments and masses of coral and strange sponges, of which I picked up more than twenty different sorts. In many cases sponge and coral are so much alike that it is only on touching them that they can be distinguished. Quantities of sea-weed, too, are thrown up; but, strange as it may seem, these are far less beautiful and less varied than may be found on any favorable part of our own coasts.

The natives here, even those who seem to be of pure Papuan race, were much more reserved and taciturn than those of Ké. This is probably because I only saw them as yet among strangers and in small parties. One must see the savage at home to know what he really is. Even here, however, the Papuan character sometimes breaks out. Little boys sing cheerfully as they walk along, or talk aloud to themselves (quite a negro characteristic); and, try all they can, the men can not conceal their emotions in the true Malay fashion. A number of them were one day in my house, and having a fancy to try what sort of eating tripang would be, I bought a couple, paying for them with such an extravagant quantity of tobacco that the seller saw that I was a green customer. He could not, however, conceal his delight, but as he smelt the fragrant weed, and exhibited the large handful to his companions, he grinned and twisted and gave silent chuckles in a most expressive pantomime. I had often before made the same mistake in paying a Malay for some trifle. In no case, however, was his pleasure visible on his countenance-a dull and stupid hesitation only showing his surprise, which would be exhibited exactly in the same way

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whether he was over or under paid. These little moral traits are of the greatest interest when taken in connection with physical features. They do not admit of the same ready explanation by external causes which is so frequently applied to the latter. Writers on the races of mankind have too often to trust to the information of travellers who pass rapidly from country to country, and thus have few opportunities of becoming acquainted with peculiarities of national character or even of ascertaining what is really the average physical conformation of the people. Such are exceedingly apt to be deceived in places where two races have long intermingled, by looking on intermediate forms and mixed habits as evidences of a natural transition from one race to the other, instead of an artificial mixture of two distinct peoples; and they will be the more readily led into this error if, as in the present case, writers on the subject should have been in the habit of classing these races as mere varieties of one stock, as closely related in physical conformation as from their geographical proximity one might suppose they ought to be. So far as I have yet seen, the Malay and Papuan appear to be as widely separated as any two human races that exist, being distinguished by physical, mental, and moral characteristics, all of the most marked and striking kind.

Feb. 5th.-I took advantage of a very fine calm day to pay a visit to the island of Wokan, which is about a mile from us and forms part of the "tanna busar," or main-land of Aru. This is a large island, extending from north to south about a hundred miles, but so low in many parts as to be intersected. by several creeks, which run completely through it, offering a passage for good-sized vessels. On the west side, where we are, there are only a few outlying islands, of which ours (Wamma) is the principal; but on the east coast are a great number of islands, extending some miles beyond the mainland, and forming the "blakang tana," or " back country," of the traders, being the principal seat of the pearl, tripang, and tortoise-shell fisheries. To the main-land many of the birds and animals of the country are altogether confined; the birds of paradise, the black cockatoo, the great brush-turkey, and the cassowary, are none of them found on Wamma or any of the detached islands. I did not, however, expect in this ex

cursion to see any decided difference in the forest or its productions, and was therefore agreeably surprised. The beach was overhung with the drooping branches of large trees, loaded with Orchideæ, ferns, and other epiphytal plants. In the forest there was more variety, some parts being dry, and with trees of a lower growth, while in others there were some of the most beautiful palms I have ever seen, with a perfectly straight, smooth, slender stem, a hundred feet high, and a crown of handsome drooping leaves. But the greatest novelty and most striking feature to my eyes were the tree-ferns, which, after seven years spent in the tropics, I now saw in perfection for the first time. All I had hitherto met with were slender species, not more than twelve feet high, and they gave not the least idea of the supreme beauty of trees bearing their elegant heads of fronds more than thirty feet in the air, like those which were plentifully scattered about this forest. There is nothing in tropical vegetation so perfectly beautiful.

My boys shot five sorts of birds, none of which we had obtained during a month's shooting in Wamma. Two were very pretty fly-catchers, already known from New Guinea; one of them (Monarcha chrysomela), of brilliant black and bright orange colors, is by some authors considered to be the most beautiful of all fly-catchers; the other is pure white and velvety black, with a broad fleshy ring round the eye of an azure-blue color; it is named the "spectacled fly-catcher" (Monarcha telescopthalma), and was first found in New Guinea, along with the other, by the French naturalists during the voyage of the discovery-ship Coquille.

Feb. 18th.-Before leaving Macassar, I had written to the Governor of Amboyna, requesting him to assist me with the native chiefs of Aru. I now received by a vessel which had arrived from Amboyna a very polite answer, informing me that orders had been sent to give me every assistance that I might require; and I was just congratulating myself on being at length able to get a boat and men to go to the mainland and explore the interior, when a sudden check came in the form of a piratical incursion. A small prau arrived which had been attacked by pirates, and had a man wounded. They were said to have five boats, but more were expected to be behind, and the traders were all in consternation. fear