•69 
C^HAPTER VL 
An Apology for Beetles — Village Trees — The Buffalo and the Fanqui— 
Danes Island — Boy Hunters — Habits of Ants — Flowers compared 
with those of England— North and South, a Porcine Contrast- 
Reservoirs in Canton — Monster Aquarium — Pond Shell-fish — The 
Scaly Ant-eater — Master Wouff and “Scales.” 
On approacliing the villages I saw the hanging 
branches and dark foliage of the shining fig-tree 
(Ficus nitida), and the hoary limbs of the great 
Bombax Cepa, entirely bare of foliage, but covered 
with magnificent scarlet flowers. The bamboos were 
really grand j the finest I had ever seen. Under 
the clumps of this huge gvass, which here grows 
forty feet high, I found a pleasant shelter from the 
sun, and — a few beetles. iVmong them a pale 
yellow kind, a giant among lady-birds. On the 
ground, among the dead leaves, instled a glistening 
• brown lizard, and about the roots mole-crickets ran 
timidly along, or lazily scraped the moist earth 
