11th 260 Heavy rain all night, and dark.
12th 56 Showery.
13th 44 Showery; some moonlight.
14th 4 Fine; moonlight.
15th 24 Rain; moonlight.
16th 6 Showers; moonlight.
17th 6 Showers; moonlight.
18th 1 Showers; moonlight.
Total 1,386

It thus appears that on twenty-six nights I collected 1,386
moths, but that more than 800 of them were collected on four very
wet and dark nights. My success here led me to hope that, by
similar arrangements, I might on every island be able to obtain an
abundance of these insects; but, strange to say, during the six
succeeding years, I was never once able to make any collections at
all approaching those at Sarawak. The reason for this I can pretty
well understand to be owing to the absence of some one or other
essential condition that were here all combined. Sometimes the
dry season was the hindrance; more frequently residence in a town
or village not close to virgin forest, and surrounded by other
houses whose lights were a counter-attraction; still more
frequently residence in a dark palm-thatched house, with a lofty
roof, in whose recesses every moth was lost the instant it
entered. This last was the greatest drawback, and the real reason
why I never again was able to make a collection of moths; for I
never afterwards lived in a solitary jungle-house with a low
boarded and whitewashed verandah, so constructed as to prevent
insects at once escaping into the upper part of the house, quite
out of reach.