276 DOWN THfi niVER. 



darkies burst out into a loud guffiuv, and exclaim " Stupid you ! " when it is 

 discovered that I have missed them. These sable gentlemen, I may men- 

 tion, were great favourites ; and as when one made a remark the other echoed 

 it, or when one laughed his companion joined in his merriment, therefore 

 the ladies nicknamed them incontinently Pyke and Pluck, at which joke 

 they laughed consumedly, and indeed roared so loud that they bade fair to 

 startle all the game. As we progress, the river varies in width, from a 

 quarter to half a mile, and is studded with beautiful islands, all of which are 

 covered with flowering plants, and the larger ones with trees. But we get 

 down the river but slowly; for first Pyke points out a long trail on the 

 water, and tells us it is a Black Snake so I fire, and am more successful this 

 time, for when we pull up to the spot we find the animal dead at the bottom 

 of the clear water ; then we see what the blacks call a Monkey, but which is 

 in reality a small Sloth, seated far aloft, between the forks of a tall gum tree; 

 Pyke, who, on his own showing, is a dead shot, levels the fatal tube, but, 

 instead of bringing down the " Monkey," only wounds him ; whereat the 

 wretched beast moaningly essays to climb beyond our reach, and utters such 

 plaintive cries — the sound reminding us of a child in distress — that we are 

 almost tempted to leave him, a proposal which both Pyke and Pluck treat 

 with great scorn, and at another discharge he comes toppling down into the 

 water, and being examined by Pyke, is reported to be very fat, and so is 

 stowed away in a safe comer of the boat, and is reserved as a bonne bouche for 

 their supper. This little animal, which is about the size of a large cat, is 

 rather rare ; like the rest of the Sloths it lives almost entirely in the trees- 

 I rather think it is not marsupial, at all events it has this strange peculiarity, 

 that it carries its young one — it has but one at a birth — on its shoulders, 

 whose little arms grasp firmly the mother's head. I have often seen them 

 myself in this odd position. It is nocturnal in its habits, but does not, like 

 the Oppossum, retire to the holes in the trees during the day time, remaining 

 silently perched upon a branch. It feeds chiefly upon the leaves of the gum 



tree. 



To he continued. 



THE DIURNAL LEPIDOPTERA FOUND IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 

 OF LUTON, BEDFORDSHIRE. 



BY ALFRED LUCAS, ESQ. 



Havino noticed that in some of your former numbers you have received 

 communications relative to the various localities where lepidopterous insects 

 have been found, but not having seen the south of Bedfordshire among 

 them, I thought that a brief list of those insects taken in that part might not 

 prove entirely void of interest to some of the readers of The Naturalist. 



