FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB. 13 



be catching flies and mosquitoes with an alertness which 

 was surprising. As they worked they sang, a shrill chirping 

 little note, which was kept up without intermission. They 

 were of two kinds, the most numerous being greenish brown, 

 with an orange colored throat* ; the others were pex-fectly 

 black, f In length they were a little over an inch. It was 

 most amusing to see how cleverly they stalked their prey 

 and finally captured it with a sharp little jump and the 

 throwing out of the tongue, which is a characteristic 

 of the frogs. So long as we remained still, they would 

 venture into the cave itself, hop on to our boots, all the while 

 keeping up their incessant chirp, chirp, in the utterance of which, 

 they swell out their throats to a considerable size. When the 

 rain ceased, we ventured out. Upon one of the still pools in the 

 river we found some insects which reminded us of many a sunny 

 afternoon in England. The " water-skaters t" of Trinidad are not 

 so large as those of Europe, but in shape, so far as we can 

 remember, they are very similar. They do not live in the water, 

 but on its surface, and it is as interesting as it is amusing, to see 

 these insects skating, without skates and without ice. They 

 frequently chased each other backward and forward over the 

 sunlit surface, then two would meet, and after a short scuffle, the 

 one who got the worst of it, would take to flight, in the course 

 of which he would make a succession of most astonishing leap?. 

 Others circled about in the leisurely manner of accomplished 

 skaters, executing " eights" and other figures, on both "inside" and 

 "outside edges" and with never a "spill" to break the monotony 

 of the performance. Sometimes one would stand fast, his long 

 legs stretched out, and his brown boat-like body perfectly still, as 

 if he were glued to a sheet of glass, but a movement of our hands 

 would send him off again at his topmost speed. But these 

 gambols on the water are not for pleasure, they are the work by 

 which the " skater" obtains his livelihood. He is ever on the 

 look out for mosquitoes which come to the water to deposit their 

 eggs and if they are not very quick about it they are at once 

 caught by the skater who inserts a small beak into their bodies 

 and sucks out their juices in less than no time, for the skater is 

 a water-bug and is possessed of a capital appetite. They are nc t 

 always doomed to skate about upon one particular pool however ; 

 when they become adults they develop wings and fly by night, so 

 that should ever the water dry up, they are able to seek fresh lakes 

 and rivers new. Another object of interest in this same pool was 

 a half drowned mygale,* which had been probably washed dowr, 



*Prostheraphis trinitatis, Garman. 



fNow being identified. 



{Eurypelma virsicolor Walck. Locally known as Tarantula. 



