or observed in the Republic of Honduras, S)C. 23 



the flesh and gorge themselves with blood, until swollen to the 

 size of small peas, when they drop off. 



The agarrapatas^, which are of much more diminutive pro- 

 portions, being not larger, than grains of fine sand, attack one 

 by hundreds, burrowing in the pores of the skin, and caus- 

 ing a most intolerable itching. We all suffered more or less 

 from them ; and many of us were covered with sores caused 

 by their bites. I suffered more than others, from going so 

 much more among the bushes. There is no escaping agar- 

 rapatas, even when riding along the mule-path. They are 

 brushed from the bushes and grass which grow by the side of 

 the road, on to the traveller's clothes, and soon work their way 

 through to his skin. They are the greatest possible drawback to 

 comfort, and considerably damp the energies of au ornithologist. 

 Their annoyance might be considerably lessened, if, on coming in 

 from the woods, it were possible to make a comfortable toilet, take 

 a bath, and put on a fresh change of clothes. But, roughing it 

 as I was, and often going to sleep in the clothes worn during 

 the day, they completely destroyed my peace of mind and body, 

 I have been told that they were first introduced and bred in the 

 cattle ; and they certainly were most numerous where cattle most 

 abounded, as at Agua Azul. Edwards told me that they only 

 abound during the dry season, and that, during his residence 

 after I had left, as soon as the rains began they disappeared. 

 I know, however, that in Jamaica I was covered with them on 

 some of the wettest days I ever recollect ; and Waterton says 

 that the " bete rouge," which abounds in Demerara, and which 

 is probably pretty much the same thing, is most plentiful in the 

 rainy season. I leave the reader to reconcile these conflicting 

 statements, and ask pardon for introducing such a subject in a 

 magazine devoted to ornithology ; but, in fact, birds and insects 

 are inseparably connected in the tropics ; whoever pursues 

 the former is sure to meet with the latter, and will find that they 

 create an interest far more deep and lasting than agreeable. 



The dress 1 should recommend to a traveller going where 

 these pests are found, is a pair of loose white linen trowsers 

 fastened tight round the ancles, so as to prevent them crawling 



* The agarrapata is a small speeies of tick, of the genus Ixodes. — £d. 



