1S84.] 199 



on the third day it was close by the same piece of cloth, but not under 

 it, and on touching it I found it dead, hard to the touch, and rather 

 swollen ; neither butter, lard, nor cloth had on examination been 

 nibbled at all, though there were traces of the larva having crawled 

 all over most of the bottom of the pot ; neither fat, therefore, nor 

 greasy cloth, offered any attraction in the way of food, nor did the 

 larva seem proof against the usual harm which contact with oil or 

 grease causes to insect life ; but, on the other hand, I confess I never 

 saw a larva actually eating any of the rubbish, on which I believe it 

 must have fed : I found whenever I turned a larva out of its abode, 

 and supplied it with fresh materials to feed on, it immediately began 

 to unite some of the particles together, to cover itself with a new 

 residence, so that it would not feed until out of my sight and in 

 darkness, and thus all my attempts to see it actually eat were frustra- 

 ted by this habit. Perhaps, indeed, dried meat, which was one of the 

 substances mentioned by Rolander, might be eaten, especially if it had 

 become quite hard and tasteless ; in this state it would not be very 

 much unlike the leather of the book covers on which Reaumur found 

 the larvae feeding ; and, as a concluding observation, it occurs to me 

 to remark, that he must have kept his library in a state of dust, and 

 never let the maids " put it to rights," or he would not have found 

 his game so close at hand ! 



Emsworth : January 2nd, 1884. 



TROPICAL COLLECTINa. 

 BY GEO. C. CHAMPION. 



(Continued from page 175.) 



In my last paper I spoke chiefly of the outfit of an entomologist 

 in Central America, now I will tell him what he is likely to find in his 

 excursions, commencing with the " tierra caliente," or low country 

 (below 1000 ft. elevation) of Chiriqui, or that part of the State of 

 Panama immediately adjacent to the frontier of Costa Rica. To reach 

 the virgin forest, of which there is still plenty remaining, not oglgrz^ 

 the low country, but almost everywhere on the mountain slof= the^ 

 will probably have — if he is staying in any village or settlement— to 

 ford one or two rapid rivers or streams, full of great, loose, slippery 

 boulders, and nearly dry in the dry season, but, perhaps, up to his 

 middle in the rainy ; then most likely some " nastrojos," or second 

 growth forest of quite a different character and different vegetation to 



