TURRUCARES AND RIO GRANDE DE TARCOLES 363 



fast and at dinner. The water supply was a stream of 

 muddy water, which by filtering through an unbaked 

 earthen jar became quite clear. When I drank it I added 

 lemon juice as a precaution and Professor Tristan some- 

 times did the same. 



The clubhouse in which we slept was about a hundred 

 feet distant from the Custodio's house. It was of wood 

 with a corrugated iron roof and had a triangular gable above 

 the wall at each end, left open for ventilation, yet neither 

 bats nor birds came in. There were two doors, one win- 

 dow with a shutter but no sashes and a small covered porch 

 in front. The single room within had a wooden floor 

 raised three feet above the ground, and contained a number 

 of canvas cots or stretchers and uncovered pillows. Each 

 of us had brought his substitute for blankets — mine was an 

 old shawl, I folded it so that there were two thicknesses 

 beneath and two above for covering, and found this suffi- 

 cient and comfortable except for a short time before sunrise 

 in August, and after about one in the morning in December. 



On the second day of our stay here in August some young 

 scorpions were found on Professor Tristan's cot. Professor 

 Alfaro, who had now joined us, said that the young were usu- 

 ally not far from the mother so we all looked for her, as the 

 sting of the larger scorpions is painful, although not fatal. 

 We did not find her, but on this day and the next five of the 

 young were found, some of which were identified as Centrums 

 {Centruroides) margaritatus. This is a widely spread scorpion 

 occurring from California to Chile, and it has also been found 

 in West Africa, where it is supposed to have been introduced 

 by human agency. Professor Tristan has stated that it 

 is common in the roofs of old houses in San Jose and we 

 have mentioned in Chapter XIII its occurrence in epiphytic 

 bromeliads at Juan Viiias. The adults reach a length of four 

 inches. The scorpions of the genus Centrums or Centruroides^ 



