236 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
everywhere numerous. Fortunately the red ants make it 
their mission in life to eat these disagreeably odorous 
pests, and many lizards also make them an article of diet. 
Locusts of many species abound, and are often very 
beautiful in colour. Of course the Mantide are well 
represented, and some of them are frequently of great size 
and fierceness. One small species is a beautiful insect, 
having on the lower part of each wing a large eye or spot, 
black and pink, on a green ground, and seeming as if 
painted in body colour. Walking-stick insects of every 
size are found, all of them marvellous in their imitation 
of twigs. The dragon-flies of course are beautiful, and 
many species of Calepteryx (Demoiselles) are banded with 
chocolate or blue-green on their wings. 
In certain places, and on certain nights, there are 
myriads of Hphemeride dying round you in such quan- — 
tities as to cover the surface of everything. In their 
efforts to die gloriously they completely put the candles 
out, crowding round the wick and causing it to splutter 
itself away. I detest these insects—there is something so 
inane about them. Their pale-green bodies and stupid 
black eyes have a “cheap” look in their appearance, and 
give you the idea that so many are turned out by contract 
that the manufacturers cannot be particular as to finish. 
There are many honey-making bees, and wasps of every 
size and nearly every colour abound, some making paper 
nests, others, like the mason wasp, building their habita- 
tions and storehouses with clay. This mason wasp is, of 
course, very abundant (as it is everywhere in West 
Africa), and builds its clay cells on any available support 
that it can find, especially preferring to place them 
between the projecting covers of books and in the sleeves 
of. unworn garments. Here it stores away the green 
caterpillars and little spiders that its newly- hatched 
wasplings feed on in the larval stage. To those who keep 
insect-eating birds these storages “of the mason wasp are 
very convenient, as you can always find in their clay cells 
a constant supply of insect food ready gathered to your 
hand. The male of this species has for a long time 
4 
3 . ow 278 —_ 
=—- Loe —— i eee 
