Here the case is different.

There are certain requisites of a good collecting ground which can only be ascertained to exist by some days' search in the vicinity of each village.

In some places there is no virgin forest, as at Djilolo and Sahoe; in others there are no open pathways or clearings, as here.

At Batchian there are only two tolerable collecting places,--the road to the coal mines, and the new clearings made by the Tomore people, the latter being by far the most productive.

I believe the fact to be that insects are pretty uniformly distributed over these countries (where the forests have not been cleared away), and are so scarce in any one spot that searching for them is almost useless.