28o J YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



found in open country such as banana fields, pastures, 

 grassy fields, etc., were of species having a wide distribution 

 over all or a large part of tropical America, while those living 

 in the forests were more often peculiar to a limited region. 

 Beside collecting with a net in the usual way in daytime, he 

 did much around electric lights at night. At Salvador Mr. 

 Reed had an arc lamp arranged for him under the veranda 

 of a whitewashed building and here he spent several hours 

 each night. One evening two enormous beetles, a male and 

 a female of the same species (probably Megasoma elephas, 

 but the specimens are not accessible) came to the light and 

 were caught. Each must have measured five to six inches 

 long, two to three inches wide and correspondingly thick so 

 that they were quite bulky and heavy. The male is some- 

 what larger and has a slender projection forked at its tip, on 

 its head; this projection alone is nearly an inch long. 



Somewhat to his surprise, I think, Mr. Schaus did not 

 find the night collecting at the electric light as prolific as at 

 Juan Vifias (at 3500 feet) and was disposed to think it due 

 to the rather unusual dryness of Guapiles at this particular 

 time. In fact his collecting experiences inclined him to the 

 opinion that in Costa Rica there was no seasonal distribu- 

 tion of insects on the Atlantic slope, but that the presence or 

 absence of adult insects depends in any locality on the wet- 

 ness or dryness; this is a condition which may be quite differ- 

 ent in the same place in the same month of two consecu- 

 tive years. 



On the night of June 3 we saw clearly a total eclipse of the 

 nearly full moon; it began about 6 P. M. on the lower right 

 hand edge of the moon and gradually extended to the upper 

 edge so that for a time the entire disk was covered. 



The Florida Road was visited a second time on Novem- 

 ber 18, 1909, when A. and P. started thither on horseback 

 from La Emilia. For two miles we rode westward on the 



