266 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [November, 



A SUMMER TOUR IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 



By Prof. Angelo Heilprin. 



(In Philadelphia Public Ledger. 'S 



" In my first letter the fact was broadly stated that the dirt and 

 filth of Tangiers did not come up to my expectations, a disap- 

 pointment that was more pleasant than otherwise. Some parts 

 of the city were in fact strikingly clean, and I am not sure but 

 there are a number of areas of equal population in both New 

 York and Philadelphia which would compare unfavorably with 

 very nearly the worst parts of this city of the Moors. I had 

 brought with me a generous supply of insect annihilators and 

 irritants, but to this day, after making a goodly round of terri- 

 tory, the packet remains in the same condition as when it was 

 put up in Philadelphia — one of the impedimenta of travel yet to 

 be proved a non-surplus. 



" Thus far I have not seen a flea or associate insect of any kind; 

 that they are around and about may be taken for granted, but it 

 is, nevertheless, a consolation to the traveler, and certainly con- 

 ducive to his happiness, that they take a different route — at least 

 they did in our case- -from that which he travels. Of mosquitoes 

 we have both seen and heard, but also in very emaciated num- 

 bers, and not sufficiently to require the assistance of the great 

 net which I had prepared for their reception. Altogether the 

 insect fauna has proved itself strikingly deficient, and, had one 

 in mind the object of collecting for a museum of natural history, 

 the result would surely be disappointing. Large ants here and 

 there speed merrily along the roadway or crawl through what 

 might properly be called an apology for luxuriant grass, but they 

 are neither larger nor more ferocious than the common mountain 

 ant of Pennsylvania, nor did they appear in the numbers of the 

 latter species. Of centipedes we have not seen a trace. Thus 

 it would seem that the question of vermin need nOt necessarily 

 enter into the calculations of a journey into Morocco. That the 

 experiences of others have been very different from our own is 

 quite certain, and that they will continue different for still others 

 in the future is equally certain, but I state the simple facts as they 

 came to us, as they doubtless will come to others who follow in 

 our footsteps." 



