RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 71 



was benumbed for a week afterwards. That was 

 at Guayaquil, where the scorpions are of different 

 species from those of the Amazon, and more virulent. 

 It is a common thing there for a person stung by 

 a scorpion to have the tongue paralysed for some 

 hours. This property suggests a new version of 

 The Taming of the Shrew, much to be commended 

 to Guayaquilian Petruchios. 



The stinging properties of the large hairy tropical 

 caterpillars are well known. The venom resides in 

 the long fascicled hairs, and the pain of the sting 

 is so like that of a nettle although often far more 

 acute, and extending far beyond the surface stung 

 -that it is presumable the hairs are hollow, with 

 a poison-bag at the base, like the stinging hairs of 

 nettles. But an hour's careful examination of the 

 hairs in the live animal would settle this question, 

 so that it is useless to theorise about it. I have had 

 rather too much experience of mere mechanical 

 stinging by vegetable hairs, which are usually 

 minute or scabrous bristles, closely set on the 

 leaves, pods, or other parts of a plant, and 

 deciduous that a touch brings them off. The pocli 

 of Mucunas (i.e. Co witches), the spathes of some 

 palms, the spathe-like bracts and stipules 

 Cecropias and some other Artocarps 

 with this sort of pubescence, and I hav 

 considerably punished in collecting and preparing 

 the specimens. In all these the bristle:- 

 least their points, remain sticking in the 

 it is this that causes the. irritation ; but alt 

 sting of a caterpillar nothing is visible 

 beyond the inllained surface. 



Leguminous trees are peculiarly 



