THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 279 



that the tree was full of 'sarpents,' and that the branches would 

 break and dash him to destruction, but he climbed on. Soon he 

 began to beat himself, and I knew that the ants, the little guard- 

 ians of the tree, were after him. Then, too, he had been obliged 

 to crawl over some of the curious flat cactus that grows along the 

 trunks of trees in that country, and when I added my voice to the 

 Indians cry, "Come down," Mr, Morris said that he thought he 

 would. We made a pile of stones and boxes, and so were able to get 

 a few wasps and bees, but I shall never cease to envy the birds so 

 gracefully collecting from the beautiful Guacamaya. With wings 

 I might have secured a dozen forms new to science. I carried home 

 a flower covered branch, and later Mr. Morris secured leaves and 

 pods from the same tree, and great was my surprise and delight 

 when Captain John Donnell Smith, of Baltimore, said that the tree 

 itself was new !* 



The excavations at the ruins became daily more interesting, 

 and I could not ask Mr. Morris to spend more time with me, but 

 most fortunately I learned that the station agent's wife spoke 

 English, and she generously kept me at her house one night, thus, 

 giving me the better part of two days for collecting. 



I found the walls around one of the patios, here a place 

 for chickens and turkey-buzzards instead of ferns and orchids as 

 in Guatemala City, alive with red woolly Centris {C. tarsata Smith) 

 nesting — there were literally thousands of them, and I spent the 

 most of one afternoon getting specimens of these bees — and the 

 bees (Mesocheira hicolor Fabr.) that were parasitic in their nests. 



Then, too, there were some Megachiles(iV/. gualanensis n. sp.), 

 leaf-cutting bees, nesting in the same wall, and they had interest- 

 ing parasites {Coelioxys sangiiinosus n. sp.). Dozens of small 

 Indian boys watched me, and occasionally begged to be allowed 

 to use the net. Some native teachers came out to drive the boys 

 into school, but stayed to watch the strange 'Inglese' catching 

 'musca.' 



"For what does she want the little bugs, "they inquired of my 

 hostess. "Does she make medicine of them?" Not such a strange 

 supposition, since they grind up all sorts of insects and use them as 

 medicine. 



"The Senora does not gather them for medicine," they were 

 told, but the fame of the medicine-maker spread, and a woman 

 brought a little child with a terrible sore on his neck, and begged 

 me to give her the fly that could cure her baby. It was pitiful ! 



*Pkylhcarpus n. sp.; the genus previously known only from a single species 

 occurring in Brazil. 



