For example, I collected only 210 different kinds of beetles during my two months' stay at Bourn, while in three weeks at Amboyna, in 1857, I found more than 300 species: One of the finest insects found at Bouru was a large Cerambyx, of a deep shining chestnut colour, and with very long antennae.

It varied greatly in size, the largest specimens being three inches long, while the smallest were only an inch, the antenna varying from one and a half to five inches.
One day my boy Ali came home with a story of a big snake.

He was walking through some high grass, and stepped on something which he took for a small fallen tree, but it felt cold and yielding to his feet, and far to the right and left there was a waving and rustling of the herbage.

He jumped back in affright and prepared to shoot, but could not get a good vies of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a tree being dragged along through the grass.

As he lead several times already shot large snakes, which he declared were all as nothing compared with this, I am inclined to believe it must really have been a monster.