TURRIALBA AND PERALTA 253 



he said they were bad in the next room. I did not see either 

 of these, but I preferred not to look for them and I do not 

 know the actual authors of the numerous bites on my person! 



Mr. Hess kept a "commissary," as general shops were 

 called in this country. He had a Jamaican mulatto woman 

 as cook. She had a brown monkey, a squirrel, two dogs and 

 a cat in the kitchen or the little room next to it, — not the 

 most sanitary arrangement perhaps. For company at meals, 

 besides a young Costa Rican assistant and myself, Mr. Hess 

 usually had — except at our six o'clock "coffee" — two or 

 more of the railroad engineers or conductors whose trains 

 might happen to be in Peralta at the time, for Peralta was 

 a station where much shifting of cars, coaling of locomotive 

 tenders and, on Sundays, transfer of passengers took place. 

 One other item of the establishment was the Victor phono- 

 graph kept in the bedroom. This nightly rendered American 

 songs and recitations in my honor while I attended to the 

 day's catch, and Mr. Hess fell asleep on his bed. 



A second visit to Peralta was made on March 23, 1910, 

 when I put up as before at the railroad station, Mr. Hess 

 having sent me word that he thought conditions good for 

 collecting. 



Near noon on August 9 I was standing on the station plat- 

 form when a very curious bug alighting upon it attracted 

 my attention. Its body and folded wings together were 

 about an inch long, its colors yellow, orange and red, as well 

 as I can remember, but its most striking feature was its hind 

 or third pair of legs. Each one of these was one and one- 

 third inches long and very slender except that the tibia had 

 a thin leaf-like expansion half an inch long and one-third 

 of an inch wide, with cross-bands of orange, brownish-red 

 and blackish-brown. I was holding the insect in my hand 

 examining it when most of it flew off, leaving but one of these 

 remarkable legs in my fingers. I was unable to capture 



