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Horned Flies by Alfred Russel Wallace
Among the
insects of other orders, the most curious and novel were a group of
horned flies, of which I obtained four distinct species, settling on
fallen trees and decaying trunks. These remarkable insects, which have
been described by Mr. W. W. Saunders as a new genus, under the name of
Elaphomia or deer- flies, are about half an inch long, slender-bodied,
and with very long legs, which they draw together so as to elevate their
bodies high above the surface they are standing upon. The front pair of
legs are much shorter, and these are often stretched directly forwards,
so as to resemble antenna. The horns spring from beneath the eye, and
seem to be a prolongation of the lower part of the orbit. In the largest
and most singular species, named Elaphomia cervicornis or the
stag-horned deer-fly, these horns are nearly as long as the body, having
two branches, with two small snags near their bifurcation, so as to
resemble the horns of a stag. They are black, with the tips pale, while
the body and legs are yellowish brown, and the eyes (when alive) violet
and green. The next species (Elaphomia wallacei) is of a dark brown
colour, banded and spotted with yellow. The horns are about one- third
the length of the insect, broad, flat, and of an elongated triangular
foam. They are of a beautiful pink colour, edged with black, and with a
pale central stripe. The front part of the head is also pink, and the
eyes violet pink, with a green stripe across them, giving the insect a
very elegant and singular appearance. The third species (Elaphomia
alcicornis, the elk- horned deer-fly) is a little smaller than the two
already described, but resembling in colour Elaphomia wallacei. The
horns are very remarkable, being suddenly dilated into a flat plate,
strongly toothed round the outer margin, and strikingly resembling the
horns of the elk, after which it has been named. They are of a yellowish
colour, margined with brown, and tipped with black on the three upper
teeth. The fourth species (Elaphomia brevicornis, the short-horned
deer-fly) differs considerably from the rest. It is stouter in form, of
a nearly black colour, with a yellow ring at the base of the abdomen;
the wings have dusky stripes, and the head is compressed and dilated
laterally, with very small flat horns; which are black with a pale
centre, and look exactly like the rudiment of the horns of the two
preceding species. None of the females have any trace of the horns, ane
Mr. Saunders places in the same genus a species which has no horns in
either sex (Elaphomia polita). It is of a shining black colour, and
resembles Elaphomia cervicornis in form, size, and general appearance.
The figures above given represent these insects of their natural size
and in characteristic attitudes. |
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Expedition in New Guinea
In 1858 a great British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace conducted an expedition to Dorey bay (now Manokwari town of West Papua) in New Guinea in search of paradise birds. The following stories were translated into Bahasa Indonesia from Chapter XXXIV of his book entitled The Malay Archipelago
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On
the 15th of May the Dutch war-steamer Etna arrived; but, as the coals
had gone, it was obliged to stay till they came back. The captain knew
when the coalship was to arrive, and how long it was chartered to stay
at Dorey, and could have been back in time, but supposed it would wait
for him, and so did not hurry himself. The steamer lay at anchor just
opposite my house, and I had the advantage of hearing the half-hourly
bells struck, which was very pleasant after the monotonous silence of
the forest. The captain, doctor, engineer, and some other of the
officers paid me visits; the servants came to the brook to wash clothes,
and the son of the Prince of Tidore, with one or two companions, to
bathe; otherwise I saw little of them, and was not disturbed by visitors
so much as I had expected to be. About this time the weather set in
pretty fine, but neither birds nor insects became much more abundant,
and new birds -were very scarce. None of the Birds of Paradise except
the common one were ever met with, and we were still searching in vain
for several of the fine birds which Lesson had obtained here. Insects
were tolerably abundant, but were not on the average so fine as those of
Amboyna, and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that Dorey was not a
good collecting locality. Butterflies were very scarce, arid were mostly
the same as those which I had obtained at Aru.