I Had A Headache The Rest Of The
Day, So Great Was The Excitement Produced By What Will Appear To
Most People A Very Inadequate Cause.
I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, but
this grand capture determined me to stay on till I obtained a
good series of the new butterfly, which I have since named
Ornithoptera croesus.
The Mussaenda bush was an admirable place,
which I could visit every day on my way to the forest; and as it
was situated in a dense thicket of shrubs and creepers, I set my
man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so that I could easily
get at any insect that might visit it. Afterwards, finding that
it was often necessary to wait some time there, I had a little
seat put up under a tree by the side of it, where I came every
day to eat my lunch, and thus had half an hour's watching about
noon, besides a chance as I passed it in the morning. In this way
I obtained on an average one specimen a day for a long time, but
more than half of these were females, and more than half the
remainder worn or broken specimens, so that I should not have
obtained many perfect males had I not found another station for
them.
As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man Lahi
with a net on purpose to search for them, as they had also been
seen at some flowering trees on the beach, and I promised him
half a day's wages extra for every good specimen he could catch.
After a day or two he brought me two very fair specimens, and
told me he had caught them in the bed of a large rocky stream
that descends from the mountains to the sea abort a mile below
the village.
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