M THE TROPICS as: 



disappeared as suddenly as tliey had come. In a day 

 or two the bones of the skunk were picked clean. It 

 was interesting to see what creatures were attracted by 

 carrion. I was surprised to see opossums come fre- 

 quently to the scattered remains and roll upon them. 

 Beautiful butterflies, with Avings shot with lines of 

 purple, hovered and alighted upon the ill-smelling 

 bones, and lingered in the vicinity all day, as if the 

 odour were that of some exquisite flower. In fact, cer- 

 tain flowers, much frequented by some insects, are 

 known to exhale most unpleasant perfumes, and prob- 

 ably these insects were examples of that group. 



The butterflies at this season of the year were very 

 interesting, — not from an entomological collector's 

 standpoint, however, since all were bedraggled and 

 torn. They were the survivors of the past season, 

 barely holding their own, and their Avings testified to 

 many narrow escapes from birds. Out of fifteen butter- 

 flies, which I captured one morning, all but two 

 showed evidences of attacks by birds. In no less than 

 twelve instances the tear was in some marginal spot of 

 brilliant colour, showing the value of these markings 

 on the extreme edges of the wings, in attracting the 

 attention of the assailant from the more vital parts of 

 the insect. 



Every walk about our camp revealed new flowers or 

 seed-pods of beautiful colours and strange shapes. We 

 longed for the key to the inter-relations of plants and 



^ 293 ^ 



