FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 123 
numerous Hindu servants in native costume, and said to be the 
finest hostelry in the South Pacific, the various members of our 
party followed their own inclinations very largely. Mrs. Stoner 
and I took up our abode at the home of Miss Rennie, where we 
were in a position to see and to participate in the home life of a 
European on a tropical oceanic island. 
The spacious front garden with many tropical trees, flowers and 
bushes surrounded by a white picket fence, the house, a red-roofed 
two-story affair with the outside stairway almost over the front 
door, a back yard with orange, lemon, guava and banana trees, the 
small cement veranda, the long dining hall with its bare floor, 
chickens, shavings and other miscellany, our broken lamp set in a 
porcelain ‘‘jug,’’ the ‘‘shower-bawth,’’ to reach which one must 
cross the dining room, the ancient and obeisant native servant, 
Daniella, and the half-caste Annie—all made an imeffacable im- 
print on our memories. This was ‘‘home’’ while we were in Fiji 
and from this as a base we worked over various parts of the island. 
Frequent collecting trips were made into the outlying districts 
where various types of habitats were visited. In the vicinity of 
Walu Bay, about two miles from Suva, the mud flats where we 
found tiger beetles (Cicindela vitiensis) were investigated; near- 
by bush and cultivated plots yielded a host of other insects. Every- 
where, the thorny mimosa, or sensitive plant, with its pink blos- 
soms abounded and the great expanses of it reminded me of our 
own red clover fields. As one walks over it the leaves fold to one 
side of the stem thus exposing the thorns upon which I frequently 
caught the bag of my imsect net. Few insects are harbored by 
this plant. 
The rice flats east of Suva were inspected and some of the ar- 
thropod inhabitants were taken. Scorpions and centipedes flourish 
in such places. The woods and bamboo thickets northeast of Suva 
furnish quite a variety of insects. A trip to Navua eighteen miles 
away was fairly productive of results, entomologically speaking; 
and two visits to the Tamavua quarry where material for road- 
building was being taken out and where some very fine native bush 
is to be found, yielded good results. Never have I seen such a 
tangled jungle as the vine-covered trees and earth here presented. 
All along the trail in the bush proper, Clidemia hirta with its 
blue-black fruit and few insect inhabitants, occurred in profusion. 
In the more open places the ‘‘mile-a-minute’’ (Mecania scandens) 
