5660 Natural-History Collectors. 



pin-cushion, with six sizes of pins. A few minutes after entering the 

 edge of the forest I arrive in the heart of the wilderness — before me 

 nothing but forest for hundreds of miles. Many butterflies are found 

 on the skirts of the forest : in the midst of numbers flitting about I soon 

 distinguish the one I want — often a new one, Erycinide, Hesperia, 

 Thecla, or what not. Coleoptera you see nothing fine of at first — a 

 ihw minute Halticae on the leaves, or small Curculios, or Eumolpi: 

 when you come to the neighbourhood of a newly-fallen tree is soon 

 enough to hunt closely for them ; not only wood-eating species, but all 

 kinds seem to congregate there — Agras and Lebias in the folded leaves 

 — grand Cassidas and Erotyli, Rutelas or Melolonthids, Gymnetis, &c; 

 often a Ctenostoma running along some slender twig: it requires a 

 certain kind of weather for Coleoptera, and some days all seem to be 

 absent at once. 



Whilst I am about these things I often hear the noise of birds 

 above — pretty Tanagers or what not. You cannot see the colours of 

 red, cobalt-blue or beryl-green when they are up on the trees, and it 

 takes months of experience to know your bird. I have sometimes shot 

 at small, obscure-looking birds up the trees, and when they have fallen 

 have been dazzled by their exquisite beauty. 



I walk about a mile straight a-head, lingering in rich spots, and 

 diverging often. It is generally near two, p.m., when I reach home-,, 

 thoroughly tired : I get dinner, lay in hammock awhile reading, then 

 commence preparing my captures, &c. : this generally takes me till 

 five, p.m. ; in the evening I take tea, write and read, but generally m 

 bed by nine. 



July 18th. — I had written as above, when the steamer arrived un- 

 expectedly, two days before its time. Our post is only once in two 

 months, so I was compelled to wait the finishing and sending of this 

 letter till the present month. I have worked very hard lately, spending 

 my days just as I have described in the former part of this letter. 

 Birds, however, I can scarcely find now. I have collected a good 

 many Micro-Lepidoptera of late : they are extremely numerous here ; 

 in fact, there are many hundred species, I have no doubt, in South 

 America, and all, I suppose, will want describers and names : there is 

 nothing extraordinary in their appearance, — most of them have just 

 the look of English species, and are such as would not particularly 

 surprise one to turn up in a wood there. 



Some of my best captures lately have been in Lepidoptera : a 

 Morpho, new to me, — pale, satiny blue, rather small, beneath pale, 



