1898.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. I47 



momentous question in remote regions the tendency is to pack 

 too closely, which favors decay among the larger specimens. 



What of the "hosts of insects?" I have traveled for hours 

 up and down the rivers and walked for miles through the forests 

 without seeing more than a very few insects (except the ubiqui- 

 tous mosquitoes, of course). Along the larger rivers there is a 

 small (?) insect fauna. In the depths of the forest where it is so 

 dark that bats may often be seen flying at noon — collecting is 

 naturally dull. But let the insect-hunter find some dark dell with 

 a deep malarious pool and plenty of flowering shrubs about and 

 he feels more enthusiastic, especially if there is twenty grains of 

 quinine in him; there he may find game. Also, there game may 

 find him; numerous species of ants give him samples of various 

 solutions of formic acid; vipers and tree-snakes may give him an 

 opportunity to test his latest snake-poison antidote; seven beau- 

 tiful species of mosquitoes keep him busy; the tabano \_Tabanus 

 sp. ?] bites hard; the various chaquistas bore deep; the rotodor 

 makes an itching blood-blister; ticks stick to the death; the 

 garapato begins to dig her den (under the nails): and the moya- 

 cuil (human Oestrid) lays the larvae which at once proceed to 

 establish themselves in his flesh for at least two weeks as ' ' howl- 

 ing reminders" that "There's a purpose in pain, else it were 

 hellish." 



The collector cannot begin work to good advantage before 

 ten o'clock a. m. In the forest the atmosphere is usually very 

 sultry during the middle and latter part of the day. About two 

 o'clock in the morning the air gets cooler; then the stridulation 

 of the Orthoptera becomes less violently obstreperous and, toward 

 sunrise, ceases altogether. Exposure to direct sunlight is said to 

 be very dangerous during the Summer months; not sunstroke, 

 but various forms of malarial fever being the result. The tem- 

 perature rarely gets above iqo° F. ; but it is the humidity that 

 tells on the active collector. Rainy days are rare. Two or three 

 inches of rain may fall in as many hours. In the densest forest 

 where the sun never shines (because of the numerous leafy 

 " behucos" which interlace the tree-tops) the collector may con- 

 tinue his search for Hemiptera or Formicidae while the rain roars 

 harmlessly above him. The air retains a marked hydrogenous 

 odor for several hours after a heavy rain; the humidity penetrates 



