302 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



twenty feet long while the pendent red flower cluster was 

 fully ten feet long. The Hellconias have no trunk, all the 

 leaves springing from the surface of the ground. Else- 

 where pasture instead of bananas bordered the same piece of 

 forest, and in a higher part of the pasture a bank of the red 

 clay was exposed. Many large dragonflies were flying about 

 here, and looking more closely I found that they frequently 

 alighted on the grass stems at the edge of this clay bank, 

 assuming a vertical position and often closing the wings. 

 Even so I caught them with difficulty and found them to be 

 Pantala hymencsa, mentioned in Chapter V. 



On November 4 Mr. Veitch gave me a "trolley" to take 

 me to the end of a line of railroad track known as "Philadel- 

 phia B Line." A "trolley" is a two-seated hand car manned 

 by two men on the front seat, the passenger sitting on the 

 rear seat. In such luxury I reached the Cieniguita River, 

 which on arriving near LImon becomes the LImon River. I 

 crossed it on a narrow footbridge at a place where, with the 

 dry conditions that had prevailed here for weeks past, the 

 river was not more than ten to fifteen feet wide. The oppo- 

 site (left) bank In Santa Rosa Farm was planted in bananas. 

 The banks of the river were In many places almost perpen- 

 dicular and ten to fifteen feet high, but here and there It was 

 possible to get down to the water's surface. All the banks 

 were fairly well covered with bushes or high grass and there 

 were many logs and fallen branches. Once while stalking 

 some Insects I heard a loud splash, as if some large body had 

 fallen into the water, a few rods farther upstream. Looking 

 in that direction I saw a large iguana crawl out on a slanting 

 log and rest a few seconds at full length upon It so that I had 

 a distinct profile view showing its large neckfold and Its 

 serrated dorsal edge. The reptile was fully five feet long. 

 Just then something else attracted my attention for an in- 

 stant and when I looked again the iguana was gone. 



