76 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



found swimming in the water ; one day I counted eleven 

 small harmless snakes swimming within half a mile of 

 the same place. 



On many days during the months of May and June 

 the river swarmed with large bright yellow flies very 

 similar to, but about twice the size of, the Green Drake 

 of the fly-fisher. They hatched out about mid-day 

 and took longer or shorter flights over the water, rising 

 from it and alighting again like miniature aeroplanes. 

 Many of them fell a prey to swallows and bee-eaters 

 and other insect-eating birds, while the rest were quickly 

 drowned, and I have seen long stretches of the river 

 completely covered by the dead insects. 



At some of the camps on the river and elsewhere 

 we were a good deal bothered by small bees, the Sting- 

 less Honey-bee (Melipona praeterita). These annoying 

 little creatures — they are about half the size of the 

 common house-fly — buzzed about you in swarms and 

 strove most persistently to settle on any exposed part 

 of your body in pursuit of the sweat, which is never 

 absent from you in those places. No matter how you 

 beat about and killed them they wxre back again im- 

 mediately and once, while writing, I kept my hands 

 quite still on the book and in a few moments I counted 

 forty-six on my two hands before their crawling became 

 unbearable. They have a disagreeably sticky feeling 

 as they crawl over you and your hands, when you have 

 squashed a number of them, become sticky too. 



At night, when the rain was not drumming cease- 

 lessly on the roof of the tent, the silence was broken 

 now and then by the grating call of a Brush Turkey 



