210 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



one nearest the array of bottles in the improvised laboratory 

 would hasten to the aid of the discoverer, who would prob- 

 ably be found with eyes glued to some strange creature and 

 blindly reaching out behind for the approaching vial, in 

 which to capture his prize. 



There were few insects of very small size and many indeed 

 were gigantic, as judged by our standards of the north. 

 None were unpleasant and they seldom attempted suicide 

 in soup or cocoa. They were content to flutter a moment 

 about the electric globe and drop quietly to the white table- 

 cloth. Praying mantises, or " rar-hosses " as our southern 

 negroes call them, would whirr in and climb awkwardly over 

 the bouquets of flowers, swaying from side to side and now 

 and then reaching out for some passing insect, with a sudden 

 unflexing of those murderous, deceptive fore-legs. One which 

 flew on the table was a new species, which has been named 

 Stagmomantis hoorie.* If exercise during meals is good 

 for one's digestion then we were hygienic in the extreme, 

 for twenty times in succession we would have to go to the 

 veranda laboratory to chloroform our captives. 



The second evening, although a heavy rain was falling, a 

 bewildering number of moths, mostly small but of exquisite 

 patterns, dashed in between the drops. There were almost 

 never two alike ; indeed among one hundred species captured 

 on two evenings, there were but two duplicates. 



It is folly to try to describe with any exactness the beauty, 

 even of the commonest, plainest insect, and how much more 

 impossible to convey an accurate idea of these tropical beau- 

 ties. Think of a sapling near an electric light covered with 

 fifty or sixty exquisite moon moths (Thysania agrippina) 

 pale creamy white, banded and looped with lines of brown 

 none less than nine inches in spread of wing and many 

 reaching an even foot across. 



* Zoologica, Vol. i, No. 4, page 123. 



