44 
Beetles foe, Necklaces. 
hunter in narrower and narrower turns until, when witliin 20 paces, it. 
falls a suie victim to the gun or nl^ore certain arrow. The uninterested 
spectator must think it something supernatural to see the hunter lying 
immovable in the grass, and the deer gradually closing in. It never fell 
to our lot to kill venison in this manner. Besides the species above 
mentioned, Guiana yet possesses the Cotus riifiis 111,: the horn of the 
male has no branches. It lives isolated in the forest, or comes out into 
the savannah along the forest borders, the mother leading the white 
spotted young with her. These deer are si>ecially attacked with gad-flies, 
their whole body being covered with the larva of the insect, while the 
wood bobs (Ixotes) prove no less troublesomje to them. Our hunters 
often brought to the house animals with head and neck so absolutely 
covered with the latter, that its loathsomeness made a meal off the animal 
impossible. The third species is the Gervus sw^pUcicornis ? 111. which 
also lives only in the forest and is particularly plentiful on the coast, 
where of a morning or evening it usually visits the estates l)ordering on 
the virgin jungle, and is there shot : its flesh is tasty and is considered 
a great delicacy in Georgetown. The fourth and smallest species is 
known under the name of Wilil)isiri (Crrnis Jinmilis?) : its home is also 
in the dense forest. 
106. On my way back from Kuipaiti I found in the scrub several 
interesting beetles, amongst which a stag-horn with long antennae, that 
carried little black and white tufts, particularly delighted me. Already 
taking it for a new species which, from the correspondence of the 
colouring of the tufts with that of the Prussian national colours, I had 
hoiked to call "borussica," it turned out to have been previously figured 
though not yet described in d'Oi'bigny's travels under the name of 
Cosmisoma forwosa. Biipra^tis f/ifjcoitca flew in large numbers fronv 
tree to tree — it is a beetle specially snared by the Indians Ijecause its 
metallic-glistening wing covers are used as necklaces and similar decora- 
tions. The way in which the timber on the overturned and mouldering 
trunks was l^ored to shreds showed that Possalus and Calandra were 
abundant here: both are tit-bits with the Indians, who eat them raw. 
107. The inspection of tlie cassava field on the part of the young 
man could not have been without results because his youthful wife 
brought us really many cassava cakes in the evening. 
108. With early morn we packed our smoked deer in baskets and 
took our departure. At first we crossed the pathless savannah, but 
then turned towards Mt. Wurucokua that rose a good distance away to 
the southward. The savannah became more and more pleasant, the sur- 
roundings blighter: the forested mountain-tops bobbed up on all sides 
close to and ahead of us, till we finally had to wade the river Curati 
because many did not dare cross on the dizzy passage-way over the 
natural bridge fonned by an overturned tree. In conjunction with the 
Guidiwau and a short portage, the Curati forms an excellent waterway 
with the Eio Branco. On the other side of the Curati we traversed a 
stretch of soft rolling ground which our guides called Wariweh. The 
burnt ruins of a eettlemjent were prominent on one of these hills, but 
we could not learn whether this was also the work of the Brazilians, 
I 
