SANTA CLARA 273 



the vegetation. A male was kept alive in an envelope and 

 in the evening was let loose in my bedroom. The walls and 

 ceiling were of dark-stained wood, while there was yellow 

 straw matting on the floor; the height of the ceiling was be- 

 tween eight and nine feet, and from the center hung an in- 

 candescent electric light which I placed at about mid-height. 

 Above the bulb was a flaring fluted shade, the eflfect of which 

 was to render the space above darker than that below. With 

 the illumination afi^orded by this one light, the Megalopre- 

 pus was repeatedly released and repeatedly flew up to the 

 ceiling. Once indeed it got under the fluted shade and 

 bumped up against the latter several times until I gently 

 moved the insect out from under the shade, when it flew up- 

 ward to the ceiling again. Nothing whatever is known of 

 the nature or habits of the larva of this species of dragonfly. 



Another interesting dragonfly first found this day, of 

 smaller size than the above and with a beautiful red abdo- 

 men, was Orthemis cultriformis, originally described from 

 Paraguay and which had not hitherto been known north of 

 Panama. 



Many beautiful butterflies were in this wood, some not 

 greatly unlike those at home, others of characteristically 

 tropical groups. 



On June 4 I visited this bit of forest again; there was a 

 young bull in the trail but he gave no trouble. I went up 

 first the left and then the right fork of the trail already men- 

 tioned as far as a point on each where it had become so 

 choked with bushes that further progress was difficult. An 

 early prize this morning was a great green, strong-bodied 

 dragonfly, Staurophlebia reticulata obscura, originally de- 

 scribed from Surinam and hitherto recorded only from Hon- 

 duras, Nicaragua and Chiriqui in Central America. We 

 had seen this species here on our first visit but had failed to 

 capture one. Another prize was a species of Uracis hitherto 



