450 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



Tristan told me that he had seen the same behavior among 

 these Arachnids but knew no reason for the swarming, nor 

 could I discover the cause in this instance. 



The altitude of Santa Cruz is probably between 150 and 

 170 feet above sea-level,^ my aneroid varying to that extent 

 on different days. When I had reached 250 to 275 feet this 

 dry brook bed had shallowed and above this point there 

 seemed to be no more of the Gomphoides dragonflies, so 

 leaving it I set off to climb to the top of one of the lower 

 Pilas. The side up which I went was steep, with mostly 

 small bare trees whose fallen leaves, together with dry whit- 

 ened selaginellas, covered the ground and made it slippery. 

 Among the trees were, here and there, clumps of a few- 

 branched cereus cactus twenty to thirty feet high. Half 

 an hour's climb brought me to the top of the northern end 

 of the Pilas next to Santa Cruz. The elevation was only 

 600 feet; other parts of this Cerro are much higher, prob- 

 ably 1000 to 1200 feet. They were apparently tree-clad to 

 their tops while the point I reached was almost bare and for 

 my purpose — to view the country about Santa Cruz — quite 

 satisfactory. If the higher parts give a view of the Pacific 

 to the west they would be better of course, but the climb 

 must be a fatiguing one unless there are paths, absent from 

 my hill. To the north and west of north from this hill was a 

 cerro or ridge some ten or fifteen miles away, I judged, prob- 

 ably Sardinal; 5° west of north was the volcano OrosI, 5° 

 east of north Rincon de la Vieja, 30° east of north the 

 volcano Miravalles, all three, as usual, with their tops in a 

 long bank of white clouds. In line with Orosi and over the 

 low eastern part of the Cerro de Sardinal appeared a little 

 of the Pacific. To the east were ridges some miles beyond 

 Santa Cruz, while south and west the view was cut off by the 

 higher parts of the Pilas. 



^ Dr. Sapper gives it as 35 meters = 115 feet. 



