Bee a ^er tlie train ; resort is had hastily to the dictionary for words 
to address him with ; it is then ascertained that there is no means of 
going further on that evening, that the shed (all ground floor) is an 
inn, and that one of the railway officials can speak French. This last 
one is installed as interpreter forthwith by general consent. The 
whole population derive an evening’s entertainment from microscopical 
exhibition of certain entomological specimens fresh from the bedroom, 
and arrangements are made for the next morning by the interpreter. 
At half-past six, a man, with a mule dragging the skeleton of a cart, is 
at the door. The vehicle, devoid of springs, is lined with a sheet of 
rush matting, slung from pegs along the top rails, and is going to 
Aldea de Xeuves. This was a favourable type of the conveyances in 
Portugal ; its wheels did not groan nor shriek, and it was drawn by a 
mule instead of by oxen. The mule too knew the road, and that was 
an advantage of which the driver was not slow to avail himself, letting 
the animal proceed by itself a mile ahead while he stopped to make 
love to his fiancee in a garden. The pace was slow enough to admit 
of stone-turning being carried on amongst the cistus bushes, leading 
to the capture of some Coleoptera and scorpions. The latter are easily 
caught by the tail with a pair of forceps and dropped into the killing 
bottle ; they cannot curve themselves sufficiently to lay hold of the 
forceps with their claws. 
At Aldea de Neuves a change was effected in the mode of trans- 
port. A man with a horse was procured ; part of the baggage was 
adjusted like a knapsack upon the rider’s shoulders, and the rest had 
to be embraced with his arms, and balanced as well as it could be upon 
the neck of the bare-backed steed. A brigand-pattern blanket was 
then thrown over the whole, and the horse led slowly along by the 
halter. Almodovar was five or six miles off ; and the horse was a 
strongly carinated animal of corpulent tendencies. 
The country surrounding Almodovar for some distance is uneven, 
but the hills are of inconsiderable elevation above the average level of 
the vicinage. The streams, like most others in Portugal, are subject 
to excessive floods during the winter rains. Wherever this is the case, 
if the stream-bed is of shifting material, the shallows are rendered 
almost uninhabitable, and the Neuroptera, contrary to their usual 
habits, betake themselves chiefly to the deeper pools. The warmth of 
the water often induces snakes to take up their quarters for the night 
beneath immersed stones, where they are likely to be found, entangled 
in folds, by the collector in searching for larvae. Shelter suitable for 
Trichoptera being scarce in this district, a difficulty is often ex- 
