222 VOYAGES OF A NATURALIST 



compounded of scraped nut and sea-water, was 

 really quite palatable. 



At Tautira one of the sailors brought me the 

 dried shell of a cocoanut which he told me was full 

 of lizards. I at once plugged the " eye-holes " 

 and took the nutshell on board, where a careful 

 examination showed that it contained 136 lizard 

 eggs, 294 empty egg-shells, and 13 newly-hatched 

 lizards. It would seem, therefore, that many 

 females of this species* repair to the same place 

 to deposit their eggs. The eggs themselves were 

 found to be in all stages of incubation, from 

 " newly-laid " to shells containing perfect lizards. 

 I afterwards found several hundreds of eggs of 

 this species in a hole in the ground, close to the 

 sea, at Papeete. Butterflies were very scarce 

 on Tahiti ; at Papeete we met with only one 

 species ;| and on a small coral island some mUes 

 from Tautira, with but one more,:}: A large 

 hawk-moth, much resembling the well-known 

 convolvulus hawk-moth, was caught on board 

 while we were at anchor. Five species of Micro- 

 lepidoptera were also caught at the poop light. 

 These have been determined by Lord Wasingham, 

 who has described one as a new species under the 

 name of Pyroderces crawfordi. 



Mosquitoes§ were extremely troublesome on 

 shore, but very few appeared on the ship until 



* Lygosoma cyanwum. f Nipara eleutha var. walkeri. 



J HypoUmnas bolina var. thomsoni. § Stegomyia fasciata. 



