270 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



piles) when no train had yet appeared, I began to wonder 

 whether it had been omitted for the day. However it 

 came a little later and left La Junta for Guapiles at 5.25 

 P. M. It was a mixed train with more freight cars than 

 passenger, and the only one of the day in that direction. 

 I learned later that it was usual to go on past La Junta to 

 Siquirres, where the Guapiles train started, and wait there, 

 but no one had told me this. Further, Tuesdays, Thursdays 

 and Saturdays were heavier freight days than the others 

 and in consequence the train was always later on those days. 



Between La Junta and Guapiles Mr. Reed found me on 

 the train and I had the pleasure of his company the rest 

 of the way. He told me that in the twenty miles between 

 the two places there was the possibility of sixty-three stops 

 on the railroad. This was because there were practically 

 no roads for teams in this part of the country and conse- 

 quently everyone depended on the railroad for the carriage 

 of all goods. We did not make the sixty-three stops but 

 there were enough of them and enough freight to be unloaded 

 to make it after nine o'clock when we reached Guapiles and 

 Mr. Reed took me to "Salvador," as the Superintendent's 

 house was named. Here I met Mrs. Reed and here I unex- 

 pectedly found Mr. Schaus and Mr. Barnes who had ar- 

 rived the day before to collect Lepidoptera. 



Salvador was approached from the railroad by a straight 

 walk bordered on each side, for part of its length, by a row 

 of majestic royal palms; some gaps which had been unac- 

 countably left had been filled in with younger specimens. 

 The house itself, about three years old, was of frame, as was 

 the case also with all the farmhouses of the region. It was 

 two-storied, square, with a wide veranda running completely 

 around all four sides on both stories, a central hall for the 

 entire length of both, and in the rear a detached but con- 

 nected building containing a kitchen and pantry below and 



