THE ATTAS AT HOME 175 



casional trogon swooping across a glowing, 

 feathered comet of emerald, azurite and gold; 

 or, slowly drifting in and out among the vines 

 and coming to rest with waving wings, a yellow 

 and red spotted Ithomiid, or was it a Heli- 

 coniid or a Danaiid? with such bewildering 

 models and marvelous mimics it was impossible 

 to tell without capture and close examination. 

 Giant, purple tarantula-hawks hummed past, 

 scanning the leaves for their prey. 



Another class of glade haunters were those 

 who came strictly on business, plasterers and 

 sculptors, who found wet clay ready to their 

 needs. Great golden and rufous bees blundered 

 down and gouged out bucketsful of mud; while 

 slender-bodied, dainty, ebony wasps, after much 

 fastidious picking of place, would detach a tiny 

 bit of the whitest clay, place it in their snuff- 

 box holder, clean their feet and antenna?, run 

 their rapier in and out and delicately take to 

 wing. 



Little black trigonid bees had their special 

 quarry, a small deep valley in the midst of a 

 waste of interlacing Bad Lands, on the side of a 

 precipitous butte. Here they picked and shov- 

 eled to their hearts' content, plastering their 



