bora, it is said only twenty-six survived. | Dutch customs in Macassar our author There is an enormous gap on the northern gives a full account. A ceremonial call is side of the lip of the crater, through which generally at 7 P. M.; dinner at a quarter or a stream of lava has burst and torn its half past eight; a frock coat with tails is way through the forest to the sea; but the a sine quâ non; a dress coat and waistcoat scars which in Europe would remain for are considered de rigueur; but a frock centuries to witness to the phenomenon coat, or even "a cutaway," may be worn, of a mighty eruption are soon hidden by we are told, without a breach of decorum. the rank vegetation of the tropics. Thus The trousers should be white, and a hat, has it been with Tambora. if only carried, is indispensable; though The avi-fauna of Sumbawa exhibits a in the Dutch East Indies head coverings mingling of the Indian and Australian are not worn by either sex after sunset. forms, Sumbawa being on the outskirts of The guests are seated, generally in the the Austro-Malayan sub-region. Indian verandah, round a table, and Port, Maforms occur with genera of Australian deira, and Hollands and bitters are, in origin. Birds were numerous in the fruit- defiance of the climate, placed before gardens in and around Bima; the bag at them; Manila cheroots are handed, for the end of a long day contained over sixty smoking is universal. The ladies in way specimens; among them was a Zosterops of dress are far in advance of their Anglo(Z. sumbavensis)· -a genus of insessorial Indian sisters, and suit their attire to the birds new to science, with a brownish climate. In the morning they appear in head and the rest of the body a pretty native costume -"a short, lace-edged golden yellow. Nightjars (Caprimulgus) kibaya of thin white linen buttons up to hawk over the dried-up padi fields in hun- the throat, and a silk sarong reaches to the dreds. In no other part of the world had feet, which are without stockings and clad Dr. Guillemard ever seen birds of this only in a pair of gold-embroidered Turkish genus in such extraordinary abundance. slippers." The effect, especially in young The marketables are chiefly dried fish, and pretty women, is said to be decidbananas, and excellent tobacco, the greater edly good. The society in Macassar was part of which latter commodity comes found very pleasant; almost every one from Lombok, a small island to the west spoke English or French, as well as his of Sumbawa. The tobacco grown on this own language. An entertainment, to which island would probably be equally good, the travellers were invited, was a private but the natives do not know how to pre- theatrical performance followed by a ball pare it. With the exception of a single given in a public hall, which on Sundays ship which annually comes to Bima from served the purposes of a church. A large Mauritius to buy ponies, perhaps not an- number of people were present, and an other vessel worthy of the name ever astonishing proportion of the fair sex of visits the island. Ponies are also exported the "chocolate ladies," as they are here from Timor and Sandalwood The Sum- termed, may be included in that category. bawan animals are described as being ad- The Dutch official in these regions must mirable little beasts, about twelve hands serve for a number of years, perhaps fifhigh, of good shape, and up to almost any teen, before he can obtain furlough, so weight in spite of their small size; in he forgets his fatherland and the ladies color generally brown or skewbald; their thereof, and marries not perhaps a halfprice ranges from twelve to fifty dollars. caste, but one "whose dark hair and rich Dr. Guillemard did not add any of these warm coloring betray the presence of equine specimens to his menagerie on other than European blood. Should his board the Marchesa. constitution survive the ante-prandial port and bitters, he retires to Batavia or Buitenzorg on the completion of his term of service, and spends the remainder of his life in the society of his fellows." From Sumbawa the Marchesa proceeded to Macassar, on the south coast of Celebes. The town is not attractive from the sea, the land being flat and low; "the place fairly grilled in the heat." Putting At the theatrical entertainment the actJava aside, Macassar is the most impor- ing was good, but the blijspel (comedy) tant town in the whole of the Dutch East rather heavy. At the ball the supply of Indies, and the centre of trade of a vast champagne a favorite wine with the extent of country. "Batavia is the Singa- Dutch was inexhaustible. It is sup pore of the Dutch; Macassar their Hong-posed to have a prophylactic power against kong." An Englishman is seldom found cholera, whose advent was expected, and in these regions, and our ships rarely the guests were instructed how to avoid cruise in their waters. Of the dress and the dreadful scourge. "Float the liver, my dear sir, keep your liver constantly | homeward passage from the effects of a floating in champagne, and you will never gale of wind in the Bay of Biscay. The catch the cholera," was the advice given; collection of live birds and other living and "every one certainly seemed to act up to it to the best of his ability." While at Macassar the king of Goa gave a housewarming, to which most of the Dutch and German residents were invited. Though on friendly terms with the Dutch, he gives a considerable amount of trouble from the proximity of his dominions to the town, for robberies are not unfrequent. The entertainment ended with cockfighting, a favorite sport of all Malays. The spurs used were about three inches long, and made of the blades of razors ground down to excessive thinness. With such weapons there is but little cruelty in the affair. We waited to see a main fought before we left. The king and other royal personages made their bets; the combatants were placed opposite to one another; they made two feints, and in less than half-a-dozen seconds the vanguished bird lay motionless on the ground. Had he met his fate legitimately at the hands of the poulterer, his death could not have been more rapidly effected. things, which at a later period of her cruise almost "turned the Marchesa into a floating zoological garden, made its first real commencement in northern Celebes." Among other curiosities, the most interesting of all the additions to the menagerie was a tiny lemuroid animal (Tarsius spectrum, Geoffroy), which a native brought. This small, active creature about the size of a rat-is arboreal and nocturnal in its habits; it is covered with a very thick, soft, woolly fur; the tail is long, the root and tip are covered with hair, the middle portion being nearly bare. The eyes and ears are enormous, and seem to make up the greater part of the face, the jaw and nose being small. The hind limb at once attracts attention, for the tarsal bones are of great length. This peculiarity has given the animal its scientific (generic) name. "The hand is equally noticeable for its length, the curious claws with which it is provided, and the extraordinary disc-shaped pulps on the palmar surface of the fingers, which probably enable the animal to retain its hold in almost any position." The specific name of spectrum alludes to the terror which the animal, with its curious-shaped face and sudden appearance at dusk, excites in the minds of the natives of the East Indian Archipelago. The little captive would remain still in its darkened cage by day, "but at night, especially if disturbed, it would spring vertically upwards in an odd, mechanical manner, not unlike the hopping of a flea." As it would not eat the cockroaches, the only food obtainable, it only lived till the third day, when "it found a grave in a pickle bottle, and was duly consigned to a shelf in the Marchesa's columbarium." This weird-looking little creature appears in an illustration on p. 184, vol. ii., of our author's work. We believe that no living specimen has ever been brought to England. At Menado, in north Celebes, the travellers made their first acquaintance with the kanari nut, said by Dr. Guillemard to be incomparably superior, when eaten fresh, to any nut he ever tasted. The tree grows to a great height; a shell of extreme hardness- so hard as to require a hammer to break it-encloses a fleshy fruit of one to three kernels covered with a thin skin; and this being removed, "the nut falls into a number of irregular flakes, snowy white, and of delicious flavor." The black cockatoo of New Guinea (Microglossus aterrimus) has an enormously powerful beak, and is able to open the nut therewith. "The labor is considerable, but the bird may be considered to be amply rewarded." Mr. Wallace found the kanari tree in the dense forests of Batchian, an island of the Moluccas. A much-prized addition to the collection was made in this part of Celebes (Menado) in the shape of a young bull Sapi-utan At Likoupang, near Maim Bay, north (Anoa depressicornis), which a native Celebes, itself a small bay about ten miles brought alive. This animal, one of the across, numbers of a peculiar bird, sole many peculiar Celebesian forms, has a representative of its genus, the maleo, small but powerful body, and clean limbs; were seen vigorously digging on the shore. it is a species of buffalo, with short, rather The only successful plan of shooting specslender, depressed horns, which are ringed imens was "to approach as near as posat the base and point nearly straight back-sible without being seen, then suddenly wards. The specimen, about two years to run in upon them, waving one's arms old, was tame and tractable, and was and firing. The birds, instead of running destined for the Regent's Park Zoolog-away, take to flight, and perch almost imical Gardens; but unfortunately it never mediately upon the trees at the edge of reached England, having died on the the beach." Here the maleo considers VOL. LX. 3092 LIVING AGE. himself safe, and can be shot without evening birds would be exposed to much tisk; putting to flight a fellow-victim on the buried beneath a layer of sand or within a same branch; thus the party secured a mound, they are comparatively safe. But good series of skins and delicious food. the depth at which the eggs are found is The bird, which is about the size of a often three feet or more. "If the weight small turkey, is peculiar to the island of of a superincumbent mass of gravel of Celebes, and belongs to the family of Me- this thickness be taken into consideration, gapodes or mound-builders, gallinaceous it will be seen that it must be such that birds, characteristic of the Australian no chick of ordinary size could force its region; but, unlike most of the Austra- way through it to the surface; hence lian and Papuan birds, which construct a the necessity of a large egg and a powermound of sticks, sand, and leaves, the ful chick, "which are adapted to the pecul maleo uses the gravel of the sea-beach iar nesting habits of the species." Mr. alone wherein to hatch its eggs. The Wallace thinks that the instincts of the eggs are of enormous size, quite dispro- bird have been made to suit its unusual portionate to the size of the bird. No ovulation; our author, that the ovulation regular mounds are made, but the beach is dependent upon habits which have been presents a series of irregular elevations adopted for the preservation of the species. and depressions, which Dr. Guillemard While staying at Limbé Island, which lies compares to the surface of a rough, con- to the east of north Celebes, the party fused sea. The eggs are not found at the made preparations for hunting babirusa, bottom of the depressions nor on the sum- or wild "pig-deer," so named by the namit of the mounds, but in shallow trenches tives from the long slender legs and curved and the slopes of the irregular hummocks. tusks of the animal, which bear some reThe natives, who are adepts in the art, semblance to horns. This extraordinary probe the gravel with a fine stick. "When creature is one of the Suide or hog family, the egg has been just covered, this is of and has four tusks; the pair in the lower course much looser, and the stick passes jaw are long and sharp and formidable in readily. The gravel is then scraped weapons of attack, the upper pair do not away, the stick again used to make certain grow downwards in the usual way, but of the direction, and, finally, the egg is curve backwards almost to the eyes. disinterred, often at the depth of a yard What is the use of these horn-like teeth? or more below the surface. The heat of Here is another curious Celebesian probthe beach, on which the sun is always lem. At present no satisfactory reason shining, is considerable." Cock birds dig has been given as to their use. Mr. Walas well as hens, and throw up the sand in lace thinks that these tusks were once perfect fountains; but the maleo does not useful, and were then worn down as fast as scratch alternately with both feet like the they grew; but that changed conditions of common fowl; he poises himself on one life have rendered them unnecessary, and leg and gives several rapid digs with the they now develop into monstrous forms, other; the large foot - he is rightly called just as the incisors of the beaver or rabbit Megapodeis broad, solid, and slightly will go on growing if the opposite teeth webbed at the base of the toes, and is do not wear them away; and this seems nearly as effective as a man's hand would to us a probable explanation. Two days' be." After the eggs are deposited in the bag showed six wild pigs and four babisand or gravel no further notice is taken rusa. The old boars are ferocious antag of them by the parents. onists. One of the hunting party had a narrow escape; an old boar got entangled in the meshes of the net by his tusks, and the natives ran up to spear him; he broke loose, however, and scattered his foes in all directions; one man took to a tree. The island of Celebes presents more curious problems for solution than any other island in the world, and the abnor mal size of the maleo's egg is one of those problems. Why should the egg be so disproportionate to the size of the bird? Each egg ready for extrusion is so large that it fills up the abdominal cavity, but the next egg in the ovary was found by The babirusa pulled up at the bottom, and to our intense astonishment proceeded to verify the statement made by the Hukum Dr. Guillemard to be about the size of a Kadua at Likoupang, by trying to scramble cherry, so that some days must elapse How far he would have ascended we unfortu up the sloping trunk after his antagonist. before it would be ready for extrusion. nately never had the opportunity of knowing, Dr. Guillemard's theory to explain the for he had hardly got his feet off the ground size of the egg seems to us perfectly sat- before his progress was stopped by a ludicrous isfactory. The eggs of large ground-nest-incident. Anxious to escape, the man had got too far out upon a branch. It gave way, and the unlucky hunter was suddenly deposited on his back within a yard or two of the formidable needle-pointed tusks of his adversary. Fortunately the attention of the latter was diverted by another native, whom he immediately charged. The man stood his ground in the most plucky manner, crouching and receiving the charge at the point of his razoredged spear. It entered just in front of the shoulder, and although nearly knocked over by the shock, he contrived to keep the animal off for the few seconds necessary for his companions to run to his assistance. Even with four spears buried in his body the old boar died game, striving to the very last to get at his antagonists. The peculiarities of the Celebesian fauna have been already alluded to; the anoa, the babirusa, and a black baboonlike ape are without near allies in any of the neighboring islands. The birds also are remarkable for the same reason; the butterflies and other insects show similar peculiarities; so that Celebes, notwithstanding the proximity of the surrounding lands, became isolated at a very remote geological time. On the arrival of the Marchesa at Ternate, a small island of the Moluccas, the voyagers visited the resident, Mr. Van Bruijn Morris, who had just returned from a voyage to New Guinea, and possessed an extensive collection of natural-history curiosities. His aviary contained a great variety of the rarest and most beautiful of the parrots of the Papuan region, amongst them the rare Pesquet's parrot (Dasyptilus Pesqueti), half vulturine in appearance, the face and throat being bare; it is a native of the mainland of New Guinea. The gems of the collection were two superb specimens both full-plumaged males-of the twelve-wired bird of paradise (Seleucides). The native prepared skins seen in European museums give no idea of the glorious beauty of the living bird. The sub-alar plumes, whose prolonged and wire-like shafts have given the bird its English name, are of a rich golden yellow, and the pectoral shield, when spread, shows to advantage its tipping of metallic emerald. These exquisite creatures were fed on the fruit of the Pandanus, with an occasional cockroach as a bonne bouche. In devouring the insects, which they did by throwing them in the air and catching them again, they displayed the wonderful grassgreen coloring of the inside of the mouth and throat. The feelings of admiration with which I watched these birds, which are among the most exquisitely beautiful of all living beings, I need not attempt to describe. My reader, if a naturalist, will divine them; if not, no description of mine could ever make him realize the intense pleasure of the first sight of such masterpieces of coloring. At Ternate there was opportunity to overhaul the ship's gear, get repairs and alterations done on board, dry and arrange the specimens collected, and clear the ship of useless lumber to make room for the "trade" it was necessary to lay in before starting for the New Guinea region. A Dutch friend most kindly took the voyagers, bag and baggage, to his house, and made them his guests till the ship was ready for sea again. Dr. Guillemard mentions this as only one of the many acts of kindness they experienced at the hands of the Dutch merchants and officials in the Malay Archipelago - kindness to which their very pleasant recollections of civilization in these ports were in no small degree due. The list of articles with which the Marchesa was provided consisted of pieces of Turkey red, prints, dark blue cotton, cotton shirts, needles, reels of cotton, packets of pins, axes, assorted beads, bottles of sweets, clasp knives, round gold Chinese buttons, Chinese looking-glasses, musical boxes, Chinese and American tobacco, bars of iron, brass wire, fishhooks, and Malay sarongs. The most marketable of this stock in trade were the Chinese gold buttons, of which the natives made earrings, but the axes and iron were much run after. The Turkey red and cotton proved almost useless, for the Papuan does not set his affections on clothing; neither were the fishhooks in much request, the natives preferring their own clumsy kind, which were generally cut out of the clam or some other shell. Thus provided, the Marchesa proceeded to New Guinea, whither we must now follow her. The visit was to be confined to the portion claimed by the Dutch namely, the western half "which from the variation in species from island to island, and the peculiarity in the distribution of the birds of paradise, is perhaps the most interesting to a naturalist." Here, too, the Papuan exists as a pure type. Moreover, Dutch New Guinea was the nearest and most accessible part of the island. Although but little explored, this, the finest portion of the island, is known to abound in excellent harbors, to possess several rivers, one of which, the Amberno, is of great size; the interior is traversed by mountain ranges, which our author thinks are destined in the distant future to be the site of plantations equal in value to those of Java. In the whole of the vast extent of country which forms the eastern limit of the Dutch possessions, there is not, we are told, a single Dutch settlement of any kind, with the exception perfection, and bursts into shouts of laughter." The bump of veneration, says our author, appears to be entirely absent from the cranium of the Papuan, who, as far as the white man can judge, is a noisy, ebullient gentleman of distinct socialistic tendencies, though not without a pretty humor of his own, as the following story, the truth of which was vouched for by of Dorei, on the north-eastern coast, in northern coast of New Guinea a village was Of the true mop-headed Papuan our author gives a very interesting account. A number visited the ship in their canoes; at first a little mistrustful, they soon shook off their shyness, clambered boldly up the sides, and overran the deck, talking and shouting loudly, examining the novel objects around them. The striking of the ship's bell greatly astonished them, and was the signal for a burst of cheering. Dr. Guillemard saw a roughly carved wooden head-rest in one of the praus alongside, and began to bargain for it. The owner wanted three knives for it; on the doctor's refusal with "an emphatic tida, indicative of astonishment and disgust at the exorbitant demand, the bystanders mimicked voice and gesture to While in Marchesa Bay, east of Battanta Island, the party obtained ten speci mens of Wilson's bird of paradise (Diphyl lodes Wilsoni), which is entirely confined to Battanta and Waigiou Islands, though in the latter island it is much rarer. This exquisitely lovely bird, the smallest of all the birds of paradise, has the wings and back scarlet, and behind the head an erect ruff of canary-colored feathers; on the breast is a shield of glossy green plumes which have metallic green and violet spots of extraordinary brilliancy; the two central tail feathers extend for five or six inches beyond the others and cross one another, and then curve gracefully into a circle of bright steely purple; "but the chief peculiarity of the bird is in the head, which is bald from the vertex backwards, the bare skin being of the brightest imag inable cobalt blue," which, however, fades soon after death, and ultimately becomes quite black. Of the red bird of paradise (P. rubra) which is also confined to Battanta and Waigiou, Dr. Guillemard was fortunate enough to obtain specimens in nearly every stage of development, showing the various changes in the plumage from the sober-colored young bird to the beautiful and quaintly ornamented adult. Of the nesting habits of the birds of paradise nothing seems to be definitely known, |