228 EXCURSIONS AROUND EGA. Chap. IV. 



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 con- 

 fined 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 (Callidryas, seven 

 species), were about a dozen species of CybdeHs, 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 the houses of 

 Indians on the banks of retired creeks ; an account of 

 one of these trips will suffice. 



