34 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION 



Leaving the Mare aux Cochons district on February 3, I descended to the coast at 

 Port Glaud, on the western side of Mahe": then, reascending the hills by the road, 

 lodged again for two nights in the house near Morne Blanc. On the inteiwening day 

 (February 4) I made an excursion to Morne Seychellois, hoping to reach the actual 

 summit, not hitherto visited by me. Owing however to heavy clouds, which rolled up 

 early in the morning and quite concealed the whereabouts of the Morne, I had to be 

 contented at first with collecting in lower patches of jungle. But in the afternoon the 

 sky quite cleared, enabling me to ascend the precipitous slopes of the peak to within 

 a few hundred feet of the top, and to collect in the dense low vegetation of endemic 

 ferns, bushes, and small trees, with which this part of the slopes is clothed. I returned 

 in the evening to Morne Blanc, passing thence next day (February 5) to Port Victoria, 

 having made since January 26 a circuit of the most mountainous and forest-covered part 

 of Mahe. 



Some days were then passed in Port Victoria, during which a certain amount of 

 collecting was done. Mr de Gaye, to whom I am much indebted for several suggestions 

 concerning collecting, had informed me that a beetle, Adoretus sp., is to be found in the 

 town at night among rose-bushes, the leaves of which it eats. Accordingly we went on 

 the evening of February 9 with a lantern to the Botanic Gardens, and obtained a fair 

 quantity of these beetles among the rose-bushes. As soon as the lantern is brought near 

 the bush the beetles fly to the light, and Mr de Gaye told me that very great numbers 

 can sometimes be taken in this manner. On another evening, which was rainy, a number 

 of moths and several specimens of a Rutelid beetle (Parastasia coquerelii Fairm.) came 

 to a bright lamp placed on the verandah of the house. 



On February 15 I returned to Mr Thomasset's house at Cascade, remaining there 

 till March 3, when the mountains were left for the last time a few days previous to de- 

 parting altogether from the Seychelles. During this second stay at Cascade, much collecting 

 was done, as before. More than once a locality at about 1500 feet elevation on a ridge 

 behind the estate was visited, where a good-sized area of ground is thickly strewn with 

 leaves fallen from a group of great Pandanus Homei. Besides beetles and parasitic 

 Hymenoptera, there were present among these leaves certain flies of the family Chiro- 

 nomidse, and also numbers of a kind of Culicid, which appears to be confined to such 

 localities. This same mosquito (as well as some Chironomidse) was obtained at the Mare aux 

 Cochons (Mahe) near small ponds among fallen Pandanus leaves. But in that place there 

 were pools of water, whereas in this locality behind Cascade the only standing-water 

 appeared to be that collected in the hollows of the leaves themselves, in which the aquatic 

 larvte of the flies possibly live. It may be added that there is a large species of Homoptera, 

 which I never found anywhere except among the fallen leaves under certain groups of this 

 Pandanus. 



Before this section is closed, some reference must be made to entomological work 

 in parts of the low cultivated country of Mahe. Firstly, collecting was done on two 

 little coconut-planted islets lying each about 4 miles from the main island, namely Long- 

 Island (July 12 — 22) and Anonyme Island (January 8 and 9). Among seaweed in both 



