«58 JUNGLE PEACE 



emerald or turquoise — the metallic cuirass of 

 some long-dead beetle. 



Some of the scenes which appeared as I 

 picked over the mold, suddenly unfolding after 

 an upheaval of debris, were like Aladdin's cave. 

 Close to the eye appeared great logs and 

 branches protruding in confusion from a heaped 

 up bank of diamonds. Brown, yellow, orange, 

 and white colors played over the scene ; and now 

 over a steep hill came a horrid, ungainly creature 

 with enormous proboscis, eight legs, and a shin- 

 ing, liver-colored body, spotted with a sickly 

 hue of yellow. It was studded with short, stiff, 

 horny hairs — a mite by name, but under the 

 lens a terrible monster. I put some of these 

 on my arm, to see if they were the notorious 

 " mucuims " which tortured us daily. Under 

 the lens I saw the hideous creature stop in its 

 awkward progress, and as it prepared to sink its 

 proboscis I involuntarily flinched, so fearful a 

 thing seemed about to happen. 



The lesser organisms defy description. They 

 are nameless except in the lists of specialists, 

 and indeed most are of new, quite unnamed 

 forms. The only social insects were small twig- 

 fuls of ant and termite colonies, with from five 



