purple black colour. Like an
ant also it is wingless, and is generally found ascending trees, passing
around the trunks in a spiral direction when approached, to avoid
capture, so that it requires a sudden run and active fingers to secure
a specimen. This species emits the usual fetid odour of the ground
beetles. My collections during our four days' stay at Ke were as
follow:--Birds, 13 species; insects, 194 species; and 3 kinds of
land-shells.

There are two kinds of people inhabiting these islands--the indigenes,
who have the Papuan characters strongly marked, and who are pagans; and
a mixed race, who are nominally Mahometans, and wear cotton clothing,
while the former use only a waist cloth of cotton or bark. These
Mahometans are said to have been driven out of Banda by the early
European settlers. They were probably a brown race, more allied to the
Malays, and their mixed descendants here exhibit great variations of
colour, hair, and features, graduating between the Malay and Papuan
types. It is interesting to observe the influence of the early
Portuguese trade with these countries in the words of their language,
which still remain in use even among these remote and savage islanders.
"Lenco" for handkerchief, and "faca" for knife, are here used to the
exclusion of the proper Malay terms. The Portuguese and Spaniards were
truly wonderful conquerors and colonizers. They effected more rapid
changes in the countries they conquered than any other nations of modern
times, resembling the Romans in their power of impressing their own
language, religion, and manners on rode and barbarous tribes.

The striking contrast of character between these people and the Malays
is exemplified in many little traits. One day when I was rambling in the
forest, an old man stopped to look at me catching an insect. He stood
very quiet till I had pinned and put it away in my collecting box, when
he could contain himself no longer, but bent almost double, and enjoyed
a hearty roar of laughter. Every one will recognise this as a true negro
trait. A Malay would have stared, and asked with a tone of bewilderment
what I was doing, for it is but little in his nature to laugh, never
heartily, and still less at or in the presence of a stranger, to whom,
however, his disdainful glances or whispered remarks are less agreeable
than the most boisterous open expression of merriment. The women here
were not so much frightened at strangers, or made to keep