488 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



With daylight we began to explore our room to determine- 

 the extent of the damage. The falling wall carried with it 

 the tumbler shelf so that the larvae, the rearings of many 

 months, were all killed — with one extraordinary exception. 

 A bottle of new Cora larvae which P. brought with him the 

 evening before from Juan Viiias — the rarest thing we had — 

 was found on the floor, unbroken and with the larvae alive! 

 The preserved specimens were uninjured, likewise the notes 

 and memoranda, negatives (which were fortunately all 

 films) and drawings. We handed three trunks from our 

 room out of the window in safety. Two others were in the 

 iron-roofed patio where we slept (for greater safety!) after 

 the earthquakes in April. Our bed there was crushed to 

 scrap iron by the mass of bricks and tiles from the wrecked 

 public school next to the hotel, which carried the galvanized 

 iron roof with it. The two trunks were so buried under 

 bricks and stone that there was no getting at them without 

 a crowbar and shovel, but later we found a man to dig them 

 out. One was so crushed and broken that it could not be 

 used again, and a pretty Indian dish from a grave on Irazu, 

 which it contained, was broken to bits but otherwise its 

 contents were uninjured, including our journal. We packed 

 up in the street as well as we could, discarding many things 

 and handing many clothes to passers-by who were obviousl}^ 

 in need of them. There were many astonishing things in 

 our room. The bureau, which had stood against the wall, 

 was simply pushed into the middle of the room and there 

 was no trouble in opening the drawers. Little boxes of 

 specimens on the table were uninjured and even one envelope 

 pinned up to the tape holding the electric light back in place 

 was safe. P.'s tin collecting case, which had been standing 

 on the instrument trunk, was perched on top of the mass of 

 bricks and rubbish, unscratched. 



The chickens in the rear patio were still alive and some- 



