Cuap. XI. FAUNA OF THE BEACH. 291 
hunter’s track, about two miles in length, which traverses the forest in 
the rear of the settlement. The other is an extremely pleasant path 
along the beach to the west of the town. This is practicable only in the 
dry season, when a flat strip of white sandy beach is exposed at the foot 
of the high wooded banks of the lake, covered with trees, which, as 
there is no underwood, form a spacious shady grove. I rambled daily, 
during many weeks of each successive dry season, along this delightful 
road. The trees, many of which are myrtles (Eugenia Egaensis of 
Martius) and wild guavas (Psidium) with smooth yellow stems, were in 
flower at this time ; and the rippling waters of the lake, under the cool 
shade, everywhere bordered the path. The place was the resort of 
kingfishers, green and blue tree-creepers, purple-headed tanagers, and 
humming-birds. Birds generally, however, were not numerous. Every 
tree was tenanted by Cicadas, the reedy notes of which produced that 
loud, jarring, insect music which is the general accompaniment of a 
woodland ramble in a hot climate. One species was very handsome, 
having wings adorned with patches of bright green and scarlet. It was 
very common ; sometimes three or four tenanting a single tree, clinging 
as usual to the branches. On approaching a tree thus peopled, a 
number of little jets of a clear liquid would be seen squirted from aloft. 
I have often received the well-directed discharge full on my face; but 
the liquid is harmless, having a sweetish taste, and is ejected by the 
insect from the anus, probably in self-defence, or from fear. The 
number and variety of gaily-tinted butterflies, sporting about in this 
grove on sunny days, were so great that the bright moving flakes of 
colour gave quite a character to the physiognomy of the place. It was 
impossible to walk far without disturbing flocks of them from the damp 
sand at the edge of the water, where they congregated to imbibe the 
moisture. They were of almost all colours, sizes, and shapes: I noticed 
here altogether eighty species, belonging to twenty-two different genera. 
It is a singular fact that, with very few exceptions, all the individuals of 
these various species thus sporting in sunny places were of the male sex , 
their partners, which are much more soberly dressed and immensely less 
numerous than the males, being confined to the shades of the woods. 
Every afternoon, as the sun was getting low, I used to notice these 
gaudy sunshine-loving swains trooping off to the forest, where I suppose 
they would find their sweethearts and wives. The most abundant, next 
to the very common sulphur-yellow and orange-coloured kinds (Calli- 
dryas, seven species), were about a dozen species of Cybdelis, which are 
of large size, and are conspicuous from their liveries of glossy dark-blue 
and purple. A superbly-adorned creature, the Callithea Markii, having 
wings of a thick texture, coloured sapphire-blue and orange, was only 
an occasional visitor. On certain days, when the weather was very 
calm, two small gilded green species (Symmachia Trochilus and Colubris) 
literally swarmed on the sands, their glittering wings lying wide open on 
the flat surface. The beach terminates, eight miles beyond Ega, at the 
mouth of a rivulet ; the character of the coast then changes, the river 
banks being masked by a line of low islets amid a labyrinth of channels. 
In all other directions my very numerous excursions were by water ; the 
most interesting of those made in the immediate neighbourhood were to 
