52 Mexican Notes. [zoe 



rooms in the airy second story of a house upon " Calle de Olas Altas" 

 the street of high waves — one of the few houses that front directly 

 upon the ocean, where the breezes come cool and clear directly off 

 the water, and drive away all thought of malaria and mosquitoes. 

 The surf keeps up its perpetual thunder just in front of my windows; 

 while from the rear balcony a magnificent view is had of the city, 

 the estero extending southward like a wide river as far as the eye 

 can reach, the outlying forests and foot-hills, and the blue mountains 

 which at a distance of thirty miles rise to an altitude of 4000 to 

 5000 feet. 



The estero is a broad, river-like lagoon which gives an inland pas- 

 sage to boats for sixty miles south, being shut off from the ocean by 

 low sandy islands covered with bushes and thickets. This lagoon 

 is not exactly of stagnant water, yet has but little current from the 

 tides, and none from rivers. With its interlacing swamps and tide- 

 flats and mangrove jungles it affords, I suspect, a fair foothold for 

 fever and malaria in the warmer season. But to the entomologist 

 these features have a pleasant aspect, for those same sandy, flat 

 shores, and tide-flats, and mud-banks bare at low tide, — ^what homes, 

 these, for tiger beetles and all those other beautiful things that de- 

 light the soul of the coleopterist ! And how they must multiply in 

 clouds, and fly in countless thousands in such congenial retreats I 

 Blue, red, green, crimson and black, shining like flakes of polished 

 metal, I seem to see them scattering before me in their sparkling 

 beauty, like bits of broken rainbow in the warm sunshine, fleeing^ 

 from before that unheard-of contrivance, a butterfly net 



The morning after arrival, like most of the succeeding ones, was 

 cold and cloudy; but after awhile the sun came out warm and 

 pleasant. With net in hand I climbed the hills near the outer ^nd 

 of the peninsula, and found a few butterflies, but as it was winter 

 time the flight was not abundant. Nearly all that I caught were 

 strange to me, although resembling forms of familiar appearance. 

 First to be taken was AgrauHs Vajiillce, then Heliconia, Pyrgus, 

 Colias, Calephelis, Phyciodes, and others, new and strange, whose 

 generic names I could not even guess at, though none were of the 

 bright, tropical appearance that I had hoped to find, and so I was 

 somewhat disappointed. The plants, too, every one new and 

 strange, yet of ordinary, homely, and even scrubby look, were not 

 so attractive as I had looked for; so I sat down on my plant press 



