Rice fields in highland Sulawesi

"I have rarely enjoyed myself more than during my residence here. As I sat taking my coffee at six in the morning, rare birds would often be seen on some tree close by, when I would hastily sally out in my slippers, and perhaps secure a prize I had been seeking after weeks. The great hornbills of Sulawesi (Buceros cassidix) would often come with loud-flapping-wings, and perch upon a lofty tree just in front of me; and the black baboon monkeys, Cynopithecus nigrescens, often stared down in astonishment at such an intrusion into their domains; while at night herds of wild pigs roamed about the house, devouring refuse, and obliging us to put away everything eatable or breakable from our little cooking-house. A few minutes' search on the fallen trees around my house at sunrise and sunset would often produce me more beetles than I would meet with in a day's collecting, and odd moments could be made valuable which when living in villages or at a distance from the forest are inevitably wasted. Where the sugar-palms were dripping with sap, flies congregated in immense numbers, and it was by spending half an hour at these when I had the time to spare that I obtained the finest and most remarkable collection of this group of insects that I have ever made."

~ Alfred Russel Wallace. Sulawesi 1857