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yellow butterflies : he tells you the various species of plants that each 

 frequents, and amongst these he says are legions of long-shanked 

 grasshoppers : this ramble was at Rio. At the same place is a light- 

 house, on a small islet, furnished with a revolving light, and, attracted 

 by the brilliancy of the polished reflectors, thousands of winged insects 

 come tapping against the glass all night long. Cicindelidae are cap- 

 tured, Hemiptera of extravagant shapes are seen reposing on the 

 green leaves, giant spiders, Juli, centipedes and Polydesmi are found 

 amongst magnificent aloes with flowering stems from twenty to thirty 

 feet high. A little further on, under dead leaves, a fine Carabus was 

 found, and, on emerging from a sunken path into the merry sunshine, 

 species of Apoderus, Hispa and Cassida were seen alighting on the 

 sun-lit leaves. Mr. Adams is a sort of entomological pre-Raphaelite, 

 every object in the landscape ifi given with such faithful minuteness. 

 When in China, he landed on Dane's Island, in the Pearl River : the 

 account he gives of the habits of ants is very interesting; one species 

 builds a large nest by bending down, and attaching together the 

 leaves of trees ; this is effected by piercing the edge of the leaves 

 with their large sharp jaws, a viscid liquor exudes, which immediately 

 hardens and cements the leaves together. Another species excavates 

 cylindrical holes in the ground ; these are entered by an elevated 

 tubular shaft, formed of agglutinated grains of sand, probably exactly 

 similar to the entrance-tube constructed by a British species of wasp 

 — Odynerus spinipes. A third species of ant jumps about the path- 

 ways like the jumping spider (Saltica) ; this ant has long jaws, like a 

 pair of forceps turned up at the end ; it is the Drepanognathus vena- 

 tor of my ' Catalogue.' 



In all branches of Natural History there are certain species inde- 

 libly connected with some cherished history of childhood, — some that 

 no doubt have been so united for centuries past : these we care not to 

 separate, even though stubborn facts would ruthlessly dispel our long- 

 dreamt dream ; thus the robin covered the Children in the Wood 

 " painfully with leaves ;" the wolf glared on Little Red Riding Hood; 

 and amongst insects, does not the glow-worm trim her lover's lamp, 

 and does not the lantern fly, like a wandering star, flit before us in 

 the forests of South America ? Any matter-of-fact person who ven- 

 tures to explode any of our popular beliefs meets with a cold recep- 

 tion ; therefore, on looking over the July number of the ' Zoologist,' 

 and meeting with an article headed " The Lanthorn of Fulgora Later- 

 naria," in which Mr. Robert John Treff'ry, of New Granada, says, " I 

 cannot tell why it is called the ' lanthorn fly,' for it gives no light," 



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