120 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. VIII 



every now and then still if I don't hit the quinine every three 

 or four weeks. No white man escapes malaria in some form 

 or other, who stays any length of time in the tropics, and this 

 region has not a good reputation. The Anopheles mosquito, 

 the carrier of the disease, is very plentiful and found every- 

 where. Some of the forms of malaria as found up country are 

 very malignant and the locally prevalent "black water fever" 

 will often kill in from 10 to 24 hours after first attack. Even 

 the mild form gives you a very unpleasant time. I know ! 



The City of Georgetown is built on land lying below, or 

 mostly below, sea level and is protected by huge sea walls or 

 dykes, built by the Dutch more than 100 years ago before the 

 British occupation. It is drained by canals which intersect the 

 city in all directions and empty into the sea at low tide. At 

 high tide the mouths of these canals are closed by gates, or the 

 town would be flooded at every high tide. This coast is all so 

 low that when you approach from the sea, you don't get a sight 

 of land until you are only 12 miles from the port of George- 

 town, and a steamer drawing over 18 feet of water has to 

 unload part of her cargo 10 miles out, at the lightship. 

 Barring the ever present malaria, I was very much struck 

 with this region. I saw some magnificent country in the 

 interior. It is one vast jungle, untouched by man except in 

 isolated spots, and only inhabited by the wild animals and a 

 few Indians. It was great collecting, I brought back over 

 75,000 specimens, many fine things among them, including a 

 couple of hundred new species. The most of the specimens 

 are moths, as that was what I was mainly after, and I didn't 

 bother much with butterflies, except to pick them up as I hap- 

 pened on them. I got a magnificent bunch of different species 

 of Ceratocampidae, some gorgeous specimens of things I never 

 knew existed before and a lot of rarities. I took in a big outfit 

 with me, including a big automobile headlight and calcium car- 

 bide light, and believe me ! the greatest crowd of "bugs" I ever 

 saw at an arc light in temperate regions wasn't a drop in the 

 bucket compared with the legions and vast hordes of insects 

 that I witnessed congregated around this one light in the jun- 

 gle. As an example, take a single night in April when I used 

 this big light on a little knoll in a clearing I made on the river 

 bank. The river (Potaro) was about a half mile wide. The 



