hS WHITE- A Skuh-I, of tin Ufr vf .Samuel White. 



beads for them. I .soon liad a good quantity of longieorns 

 brought in, some in bamboos where they had bitten one another 

 into pieces. Some had their legs tied to prevent them getting 

 :!\v;!y: scinc a ere i led in bunches by ilieir antennae, bnt \n my 

 horror many of 'hem had all their legs torn off to disable them, 

 others had their mandibles broken off to prevent them biting, 

 but a good few were perfect. A small assortment of beetles 

 and bugs was obtained. Lcpidojilcia were scarce, at least at 

 this time of the vear. 1 did not get more than a dozen 

 species, and those v\-ere nearly all small, some ol' them 

 are found in Australia, and others I have met with in New 

 Guinea. Ants were not so numerous or varied as met with in 

 Australia. The green tree ant is the most ]»leniiful. Mille- 

 pedes, centipedes, and sciU'pions T saw of moderate size, but 

 not very numerous. Spiders Avere far more numerous and 

 varied ; they spread their nets everywhere in the scrub to our 

 annoyance. Some were large and had great expanse of limb, 

 ■some were short limbed and heavy bodied, vsorae were hard and 

 others soft, some spiked all over, and there were others twice 

 as broad as long. Some few species seem similar to species 

 found in the southern part of Australia, and others closely 

 allied to those found in Northern Queensland. Mosquitos 

 and sandflies VNcre not so numei-ous or troublesome as I 

 expected; they did not trouble us on board the yaclit. but v>'e 

 found them borh in the mangrove swamps. Wasps were not 

 numerous we found to our great satisfaction, nevertheless the 

 small nest building sjM'cics were seen ixcasionally. and some of 

 our party discovered that Ihey could sting as vigorously as the 

 Australian species with which they seemed identical. It 

 seems a small fly not more than half nnd inch long, and builds 

 a nest of leaves about the height of a man's head by drawing 

 a number of large leaves together and fixing them with web. 

 It is usually jthued on the edge of the thick scrub or the sm.all 

 openings in the scrub, and is not easily seen. A number of 

 the little pests cluster on tlic outside evidently on guard, and 

 when an inti-uder a]»]>roaches, fifty or a hundred attack him 

 about the nerk and face. Tt is laughable to observe a man 

 who is sent in advance of you both walking stealthily through 

 the scrub in search of game, suddenly seized with a fit of 

 antics, throws down his gun. birds, bags, etc., throws his arms 

 about, knocks off his hat, and makes a frantic rush through 

 the thickest of tlie scrub regardless of thorns or tangle. If 

 the man behind is an old hand he knows what is the matter, 

 and darts off quietly in another direction and sits down, and 



