et 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, bored 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 or 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 Liliaceae and Pandanaceae 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 broadleaved 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
primeval woods proceeded from two birds, the red lories, who utter
shrill screams like most of the parrot tribe, and the large green
nutmeg-pigeon, whose voice is either a loud and deep boom, like two
notes struck upon a very large gon