From These Mountains To The Sea Extends A Perfectly Flat Alluvial
Plain, With No Indication That Water Would Accumulate At
A great
depth beneath it, yet the authorities at Macassar have spent much
money in boring a well a thousand
Feet deep in hope of getting a
supply of water like that obtained by the Artesian wells in the
London and Paris basins. It is not to be wondered at that the
attempt was unsuccessful.
Returning to my forest hut, I continued my daily search after
birds and insects. The weather, however, became dreadfully hot and
dry, every drop of water disappearing from the pools and rock-
holes, and with it the insects which frequented them. Only one
group remained unaffected by the intense drought; the Diptera, or
two-winged flies, continued as plentifully as ever, and on these I
was almost compelled to concentrate my attention for a week or
two, by which means I increased my collection of that Order to
about two hundred species. I also continued to obtain a few new
birds, among which were two or three kinds of small hawks and
falcons, a beautiful brush-tongued paroquet, Trichoglossus
ornatus, and a rare black and white crow, Corvus advena.
At length, about the middle of October, after several gloomy days,
down came a deluge of rain which continued to fall almost every
afternoon, showing that the early part of the wet season had
commenced. I hoped now to get a good harvest of insects, and in
some respects I was not disappointed.
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