COLEOPTERA OF THE LOWER RIO GRANDE. gj 



via the steamers of the Morgan Line, which touch at Brazos 

 de Santiago, off Point Isabel, about once in ten days. The 

 other is by stage from Alice, a station on the Mexican Na- 

 tional and the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroads. This 

 stage, running daily between Alice and Brownsville, covers 

 the intervening distance of about one hundred and sixty miles 

 in thirty-six hours. There is no means by which the trip can 

 be made by rail. 



Going south from Alice, the soil is for the most part sandy, 

 the vegetation not unlike that of the major portion of south- 

 ern Texas. Only after reaching the low lands extending 

 back from the Rio Grande does any change appear and then 

 only in spots. Here and there along the river-bottom, or 

 along the sloughs or " resacas " are found, as Mr. Schwarz 

 has elsewhere 1 stated, "isolated stripes of larger or smaller 

 extent, covered with a dense forest having a thick under- 

 growth of varied shrubbery and a rich vegetation of lower 

 plants, the like of which is not seen in am other place in 

 southwestern Texas." It is, in the main, to these little jun- 

 gles that the tropical forms are confined, while the elevated 

 or more sandv portions in the neighborhood support generally 

 only the ordinary flora and fauna of the region. 



As to the nature of the vegetation in these jungles, little 

 can be said except that it is quite unfamiliar in appearance to 

 a traveler accustomed to the forests of any other portion of 

 the United States. The palmetto here grows to the size of a 

 tree, vines of various sorts bind the bushes into an almost im- 

 penetrable mass, brilliant abutilons and salvias gleam here and 

 there in open spots. Often, however, the mesquite and allied 

 Leguminosae mingle freely with the curious isolated tropical 

 growth and serve to render it still more unique. From one 

 to another of the jungles stretches the "chaparral" of the 

 Texas of literature — mesquite, huisache, two or three species 

 of Opuntia and legions of thorny plants of gnarled growth and 

 with scanty foliage. Toward the Gulf of Mexico, on the line 

 of the little narrow-gauge road connecting Brownsville with 



1 Proc. Ent. Soc. Washington, Vol. IV., p. 2. 

 IV— ii H 2 



