274 ^ YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



entirely unknown to Mexico and Central America. The 

 point on the right fork of the trail at which I stopped, and 

 where I ate my lunch and in all spent a couple of hours, was 

 a small stream which I suppose, from Pittier's map, to be 

 an affluent of the Rio Toro Amarillo, or simply Amarillo. 

 There was an exquisite little dragonfly here with bright red 

 eyes, brilliant coppery thorax and blue and black abdomen 

 (Jrgia, near cupraurea). The much duller female of this 

 species was laying eggs in the floating, more or less sub- 

 merged vegetation, some of the insects themselves being 

 submerged during the operation, as is not uncommon in the 

 whole group to which they belong. 



The stream-bed, as usual in all this country, was filled 

 with stones and boulders so that it was possible to go some 

 distance downstream from the trail by walking on these, 

 although the banks were impenetrable owing to the vege- 

 tation. I was so engaged when a great metallic-blue Morpho, 

 perhaps the handsomest butterfly of all Central America, 

 came by and fluttered around me so close that I could not 

 use my net at once. I was astonished at its boldness for, 

 notwithstanding the strikes which I made toward it with 

 my net in the endeavor to capture it, it came back twice to 

 where I stood on the rocks, each time after an interval of 

 five minutes or so, circling around me in real mockery of 

 my impotence. 



This piece of forest differed from that described below, 

 through which the Florida road passed, in the much smaller 

 number of palms to be found in it, although the difference 

 in elevation is not more than one to two hundred feet. It 

 may have been partially cleared once, but as many of the 

 tall exogenous trees were untouched and surrounded by 

 thick growth, it seems unlikely that these would have been 

 left and the palms cut out if they ever had been here, since 

 comparatively few species of these palms are of use to man. 



