Along the Essequebo and Potaro. i i i 



some fall-bird (Paroaria gularis) darted like an arrow 

 from thicket to thicket, its blood-red head gleaming in 

 the sunshine. Various species of macaws, parrots, gulls, 

 and swallows, together with the ubiquitous black-headed 

 and red-headed carrion crows (Catharista atrata and C. 

 aura) and the common " qu'est-ce-qu'ildit" (Pitangus 

 sulphuratus) were also to be seen ; but the chances of 

 procuring specimens seldom came. 



Of inse6ls, the common "blues" (Morpho menelaus 

 and M . achillesj, the green dido (Cethosia dido), the 

 common "yellows" fCallidryas), the black and green 

 tailed moth (Urania leilusj, and the common speckled 

 Anartia (A.jatrophse) — perhaps the commonest butterfly 

 in the colony — were most frequently noticed, generally 

 among the bushes along the banks. 



At Gluck Island — a long and narrow island above the 

 last rapids at Ahara — where for the first time nearly all 

 travellers in Guiana see the Victoria regia growing in 

 its native home, we stopped in order to make our way to 

 the large pond at the southern end where the plant 

 grows, guarded by a dense thicket of the prickly Souari 

 palms (Astrocaryurn) but owing to the extremely dry 

 weather, the pond had disappeared, and a long soft grass 

 covered nearly the whole extent of soft mud, except at 

 one central part whence some hundred or more hassars 

 (Callichthys) were taken, from a deep puddle about a 

 foot square. The lily was entirely dried up, only the 

 impression of the large leaves on the mud and a few of 

 the fibrous veins and stalks remaining. Small grass- 

 hoppers, and species of hairtails and other small butter- 

 flies — chiefly Anartia — swarmed among the long grass, 

 but it was almost impossible to obtain them owing to the 



