110 Mr. P. H. Gosse on the Insects of Jamaica. 
1 had left England with high expectations of the richness of 
the West Indian entomology : large and gaily- coloured beetles, 
1 supposed, would be crawling on almost every shrub, gorgeous 
butterflies be filling the air, moths be swarming about the 
forest-edges at night, and caterpillars be beaten from every bush. 
These expectations were far from being realized ; a few species of 
butterflies, chiefly Pieris, Callidryas, Terias, Heliconia Charitonia, 
Argynnis Passijlorcs, and A. Delilaj Cystineura Mardania, and one 
or two Nymphalidce and Lycmnadce, are indeed common enough 
at all times, and in almost all situations j others are abundant 
at a particular season or locality ; but in general butterflies are to 
be obtained only casually. Moths are still more rare : I had pro- 
vided myself with bulPs-eye lanterns, and repeatedly took them out 
after nightfall, carefully searching the banks and hedges by the 
sides of roads, the margins of woods, &c., but never, in this way, 
took a single specimen. At some seasons, however, as Decem- 
ber, and more particularly June, on rainy nights, hundreds of 
little NoctuadcB, Pyralida, Geometradce, Tineadce, &c. fly in at 
the open windows, and speckle the ceiling, or flutter around the 
glass-shades with which the candles are protected from the 
draughts. A good many small beetles, and other things, also 
fly in on such occasions, and several interesting species I have 
taken in this way which I never saw at any other time. But in 
general beetles and the other orders are extremely scarce, and 
especially Diptera ; I have often been astonished at the paucity 
of these, as compared with their abundance in Canada, the 
Southern United States, and other localities (in which I have 
collected) during the hot weather. One may often walk a mile, — 
I do not mean in the depth of the forest, but in situations com- 
paratively open, beneath an unclouded sun, — and not see more 
than a dozen specimens of all orders. Nor is the beating of 
bushes productive of insects and their larvse, as I have found 
it in North America. In Canada I have shaken ofi* perhaps 
twenty species of lepidopterous larvse in the course of an hour 
or two on an autumnal morning ; but I think I have seen scarcely 
more than half that number of caterpillars in Jamaica during a 
year and a halCs collecting. 
To this scarcity of insects however there are two or three local 
and seasonal exceptions. And this leads me to speak of the prin- 
cipal localities where I have collected my specimens, and to give a 
brief description of them, which yet will be but superficial, owing 
to my ignorance of botany and geology. 
Bluefields. — I begin with this place, because it was the 
centre of my operations, and my stated residence during my 
whole sojourn in the island. Bluefields was once a sugar-estate, 
situated on a gentle slope, about a quarter of a mile from the 
