GUANACASTESANTA CRUZ 459 



magazines, principally American; I recall a portrait of J. 

 Pierpont Morgan from a magazine of about 1901 posted with 

 the others. The bedsteads were iron or wooden frames with 

 an oxhide stretched tightly over each; I slept on such a one 

 at the Hacienda Guachipelin and found it as hard as a board. 

 The chair seats were also of oxhide stretched over the frame 

 and fastened down with strips of wood nailed over the hide. 

 The most inconvenient feature of this room, and a rather 

 unusual one I think, was a horizontal beam a foot above the 

 floor which braced the uprights under the ridgepole and 

 which must be stepped over every time one passed from 

 one side of the room to the other. A smaller back room 

 served for kitchen, etc. We had plates, saucers, cups, 

 knives, forks and spoons at breakfast, but when we asked for 

 water it was brought in a guacal, as is customary here. For 

 breakfast we had fried eggs, tortillas, frijoles, rice, meat, 

 and finally coffee. It was cooked and served by the wife, a 

 decidedly brown woman, probably with a large proportion 

 of Indian blood. 



On January 27 we walked past Rollo Jaen's house (which 

 was on the left side of the road to Timpate) and farther 

 into the forest north of it than on our previous visit, follow- 

 ing a private road after securing permission to do so. The 

 forest was quite dry at this time and there were very few 

 orchids, bromeliads or other epiphytes. There was a great 

 variety in the trees, both as to species and size, and much 

 undergrowth both of shrubs and herbs. While passing 

 through this forest we made frequent short excursions from 

 the road to one side or other and in one of these came upon 

 the small slender dragonflies of the genus Metaleptobasis, se- 

 curing in all some half a dozen specimens representing both 

 sexes. In the preparation of the Biologia Centrali-Ameri- 

 cana only two specimens were available from all Central 

 America and Mexico, one being from Guatemala and one 



