64 BATCHIAN. [chap. xxiv. 



shrike, chatterer, trogon, toucan, cuckoo, and tyrant-fly- 

 catcher ; and a few days' active search will produce more 

 variety than can be here met with in as many months. 

 Yet, along with this poverty of individuals and of species, 

 there are in almost every class and order, some one or two 

 species of such extreme beauty or singularity, as to vie 

 with, or even 'surpass, anything that even South America 

 can produce. 



One afternoon when I was arranging my insects, and 

 surrounded by a crowd of wondering spectators, I showed 

 one of them how to look at a small insect with a hand- 

 lens, which caused such evident wonder that all the rest 

 wanted to see it too. I therefore fixed the glass firmly to 

 a piece of soft wood at the proper focus, and put under it 

 a little spiny beetle of the genus Hispa, and then passed 

 it round for examination. The excitement was immense. 

 Some declared it was a yard long ; others were frightened, 

 and instantly dropped it, and all were as much astonished, 

 and made as much shouting and gesticulation, as children 

 at a pantomime, or at a Christmas exhibition of the oxy- 

 hydrogen microscoj)e. And all this excitement was pro- 

 duced by a little pocket lens, an inch and a half focus, and 

 therefore magnifying only four or five times, but which to 

 their unaccustomed eyes appeared to enlarge a hundred^ 

 fold. 



On the last day of my stay here, one of my hunters 



