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Insect Plagues. 465 



porous coralline rock, allows the surface water rapidly to es- 

 cape. The only dry season they have is for a month or two 

 about September or October, and there is then an excessive 

 scarcity of water, so that sometimes hundreds of birds and 

 other animals die of drought. The natives then remove to 

 houses near the sources of the small streams, where, in the 

 shady depths of the forest, a small quantity of water still re- 

 mains. Even then many of them have to go miles for their 

 water, which they keep in large bamboos, and use very spar- 

 ingly. They assure me that they catch and kill game of all 

 kinds, by watching at the water-holes or setting snares around 

 them. That would be the time for me to make my collections ; 

 but the want of water would be a terrible annoyance, and the 

 impossibility of getting away before another whole year had 

 passed made it out of the question. 



Ever since leaving Dobbo I had suffered terribly from in- 

 sects, who seemed here bent upon revenging my long-contin- 

 ued persecution of their race. At our first stopping-place 

 sand-flies were very abundant at night, penetrating to every 

 part of the body, and pi'oducing a more lasting irritation than 

 mosquitoes. My feet and ankles especially suffered, and were 

 completely covered with little red swollen specks, which tor- 

 mented me horribly. On arriving here, we were delighted to 

 find the house free from sand-flies or mosquitoes, but in the 

 plantations, where my daily walks led me, the day-biting mos- 

 quitoes swarmed, and seemed especially to delight in attacking 

 my poor feet. After a month's incessant punishment, those 

 useful members rebelled against such treatment and broke 

 into open insurrection, throAving out numerous inflamed ulcers, 

 which were very painful, and stopped me from walking. So 

 I found myself confined to the house, and with no immediate 

 prospect of leaving it. Wounds or sores in the feet are es- 

 pecially difiicult to heal in hot climates, and I therefore dread- 

 ed them more than any other illness. The confinement was 

 very annoying, as the fine hot weather was excellent for insects, 

 of wliich I had every promise of obtaining a fine collection ; 

 and it is only by daily and unremitting search that the smaller 

 kinds, and the rarer and more interesting specimens, can be 

 obtained. When I crawled down to the river-side to bathe, I 

 often saw the blue-winged Papilio Ulysses, or some other equal- 



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