174 ^ YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



one of the Acanthaceae. At other times we noted quanti- 

 ties of Piper hirsutum and a vine with bright red flowers, 

 Vitis rhombifolia. Along the western edge of the laguna were 

 large groves of guayabo trees (from whose fruit "guava" 

 jelly is made), full of fruit which in July was still un- 

 ripe. In the narrower, northern part of the laguna was 

 a large vegetable garden cultivated by a Cuban, who showed 

 us some pieces of pottery, broken but quaint and interesting, 

 that he had himself dug out of old graves in clearing the 

 land for his garden. 



Large portions of the sloping crater-walls enclosing the 

 laguna on the eastern, northern and western sides were 

 planted in coffee, the cultivated area on the west side being 

 much less than on the other two. On June 27 we wandered 

 through the western coffee patch, which was on a steep 

 slope of very loose soil so that we had to be constantly on 

 our guard lest we lose our footing and roll down. The coffee 

 here was shaded by plantains and a few large scattered forest 

 trees left standing. P. caught a lichen-imitating katydid 

 {Lichenochrus sp., probably marmoratus), whose markings 

 exactly resembled the mottled green-gray lichen on the tree- 

 trunks. Its body was 18 mm. (three-fourths inches) long; 

 it had projecting knobs on head and thorax and a row of 

 knobs along the middle of the upper surface of the abdomen; 

 the wings were but 3 mm. long, indicating its youthfulness, 

 as the adult insect has the organs of flight well developed.^ 

 Later we watched a large red and black solitary wasp work- 

 ing at its burrow. There was a limp green katydid lying 

 outside the burrow when we first saw it and the wasp was 

 fussing around the entrance. She soon went down, head 

 first, and after an interval backed out with a pellet of earth 

 in her jaws. This she passed between her legs from pair to 



1 See the figure by Rehn in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia for 1905, p. 816. 



