JUAN VINAS~THE REVENTAZON VALLEY 217 



and much more continuous. It did not give the impression 

 of constantly increasing speed but was steady and uniform, 

 and there were so many cicadas that the noise was deafen- 

 ing. In March the penetrating notes of a few cicadas 

 seemed to indicate the waxing of insect life again. 



Of all the butterflies the most conspicuous were the me- 

 tallic blue species of Morpho. This genus is characteristic 

 of tropical America and extends from Southern Mexico to 

 Argentina. Some authors, like Godman and Salvin, con- 

 sider it to belong to the Nymphalidse, forming a special 

 subfamily thereof, the Morphinae. Others make of it and 

 its allies a separate family, Morphidae. Most of the species 

 have a number of eye-spots, or ocelli, with a diameter of ^/g 

 inch or less, on the under sides of the wings. Six species 

 and subspecies are considered by Friihstorfer, the latest 

 writer (1912) on the group, to occur in Costa Rica.^ Their 

 wing-expanse is from four to five inches. In Costa Rica 

 Morpho extends from sea-level to an altitude of 3500 feet. 

 We never saw them near Cartago, but occasionally one could 

 be seen along the road leading upward from the station at 

 Juan Villas to the village. Their flight when undisturbed 

 is an easy sailing with many a rise and fall over the tops of 

 shrubs and bushes, but when alarmed they fly very swiftly. 

 Many of the individuals one sees, except just after they 

 have transformed into the winged condition, have the 

 wings torn and tattered. On May 2, while I sat in partial 

 shade at the little cascade west of the farther waterfall, a 

 great blue Morpho which had several times sailed over the 

 place, alighted on my knee. Its wings were rubbed and 

 their edges ragged so that there was little temptation to 



' Four of these species have the upper surfaces of the wings with more or less 

 metallic blue: M. peleides limpida, M. granadensis polybaptus, M. cypris cypris 

 (with a conspicuous band of yellow across the blue of both pairs) and M. amalonthe 

 centralis. M. theseus aquarius has the wings rich hvown, M .poly phemus white with a 

 few black marks. 



