VOL. I.'] Mexican Notes. 53 



and pondered: " Is this Mexico — this the tropics?" Then I went 

 about and collected a few of the chilled, depauperate flowering 

 plants, that showed no sign of tropical warmth, or even as though 

 they had ever once been comfortably fed; then with net I swept the 

 scanty herbage for beedes, and got only a dozen very small Cocci- 

 nellidce that looked very ordinary indeed. 



" Blessed be the man who first invented sleep," for a night's rest, 

 restored my balance, and after breakfast I struck out for the island 

 side of town. Some acacia trees were in blossom, but no insects 

 were on them. A tall coarsely-flowering bean ran over a small tree, 

 looking very pretty. A big flock of blackbirds nearly as large as 

 crows were all about the roadside bushes. Some gay orioles soon 

 caught my eye; then a large fly-catcher that went screaming with 

 anger into the thicket. A little goatsucker sat on the top rail of a 

 fence in the deep shade of a tree, and I had a mind to catch it in my 

 net for a butterfly. I crossed an old cornfield, the weeds in which 

 gave me a few flowering plants. Then across an open pasture fleld 

 where some fine cows were feeding; here also I got a few plants^ m 

 flower. Presently, coming near to a low, wet place, I saw, flying 

 high in air, a large Scepsis with white apices and red basal spots; 

 this captured my fancy so much that I waited and walked about the 

 place for two or three hours, getting meanwhile a number of other 

 things, until I had seven or eight of the coveted insects. 



I planned that the next day's route should be over on the estero 

 side of town, among the mesquit hedges, and along the bushy side 

 of the tide-water. Here, farther away from the more chilly air of the 

 immediate beach, the air was comparatively warm, and more flowers 

 might be expected. So in the morning I took a street-car through 

 the city, and came out upon the banks of the lagoon to the east of 

 the city Here, a mile from town, were warm nooks, grassy httle 

 arroyos and charming glades, the air odorous with blossoms, and 

 banks and fences over-run with a delicate cucurbit vine and a small 

 passion vine. A few nimble butterflies flitted about the flowering 

 mesquit trees; these insects were rather small, but some were of 

 bright colors and with new and strange forms like some I have seen 

 from South America. The star-like blossoms of the cucurbit vine I 

 found to be frequented by some of the butterflies, and there was a 

 white flower resembling yarrow upon which I caught a gorgeous 

 metallic-blue tropical butterfly of the Eudamus pattern, while upon 



