23s [September, 



being the lanes loading from the landing place up to the town), but I 

 have managed to accumulate a nice little lot of Lepidoptera and Hy- 

 menoptera ; other Orders of insects, except perhaps Orthoptera, being 

 just now very poorly represented. As for Ooleoptera, one may say 

 there are practically none, a day's work producing only a few miserable 

 CoccinelUdce, Oalcrucidce, and the like ; a smooth, red Ilispa ? (the 

 larva of which feeds on the Za77U(B, and strips the leaves down 

 to the midrib) is the only insect of this Order which can be called at 

 all common. But this is the height of the "dry season " (and dry it 

 is, in all conscience), and during the rains I am told that beetles are 

 only too numerous. One very singular circumstance is that there are 

 apparently no Coprophaga ; in spite of diligent search in all varieties 

 of their food, I have not taken a single specimen ; ants appear to do 

 their work hero. In butterflies I have already taken over 40 species, 

 including Papilio Eritho7iius (also larva)), Gallidryas (3 spp.), Terias 

 {^),EIodi7in (1), Pieris (2), Acrcea Andromache, Eurycus Gressidn ()]ot 

 rare), Diademn (4 spp.), Danais Qi),Euploea (3 or more), Junonia (2), 

 Cethosia (? Pciithcsilea, Godt., very common and fine), Melanitis Leda 

 (abundant, very- fine and variable), Amhlypodia (lovely sp.), Thecla, 

 Lyc(cnn ((> spp. at least), Ccenonymphn, Satyrtis (2 spp), Hesperidce, 

 perhaps 5 spp., one of which, a great black and fulvous fellow, three 

 inches in expanse, is the grandest thing of the group I have yet met 

 with. Diadema Polina runs to grand vars. of the $ , but cannot bo 

 called abundant, and I have not found the larva yet, as I did in 

 Tahiti, kc. 



There is a good variety of moths {Py rales, perhaps, abounding 

 more than others), including one or two fine day flyers ; but the w^et 

 season appears to be the time for them, as for the beetles. Termites 

 and ants swarm everywhere, and of the latter there is one most ob- 

 jectionable species (? (Ecophylln svinragdinn), a green fellow, about 

 the size of F. riifa, which makes largo nests by drawing leaves together 

 with a sort of white silk, and is so abundant that eight or ten of those 

 nests may be seen on one bush. These fellows get down one's back 

 while traversing the scrub, and bite most severely, besides emitting a 

 very pungent smell of formic acid ; fortunately they do not sting, as 

 some of the species living under stones do. There are " garra[)atas " 

 here, but luckily they are not numerous ; also (I hear) leeches in 

 some of the marshy places. Dragon-flies are abundant, but none are 

 at all remarkable ; some fine locusts, Mantidce, &c., chiefly in the scrub 

 land, and a superabundance of mosquitoes, sand flies, &c., in the 

 mangrove swamps, which (contrary to what I have always heard) pro- 



