96 
CONTENT. 
To this scarcity of insects, however, there are two 
or three local and seasonal exceptions. The high- 
road, passing just behind and above the cottage of 
Content, climbs the mountain in the zigzag direction 
so frequently adopted in Jamaica, to diminish the 
steepness of the ascent ; and it is a mile or two of 
this road that forms the most remarkable exception 
to the general scarcity of insects that I have noticed. 
During the month of June the shrubs and trees that 
border the road (which is cut through the forest) are 
alive with insects of all orders, but particularly 
Coleoptera; many species of Longicornes, LampyridcB, 
Buprestidce, CassididcB, ChrysomelidcB, &c., occur by 
hundreds on the twigs and leaves ; and the air is alive 
with butterflies, Plymenoptera and Diptera. I can- 
not at all tell why this abundance exists ; it is very 
local ; beyond a certain point, the road, the forest, 
seem to be unchanged, but the insects have ceased : 
it is very temporary also ; it suddenly commences 
about the end of May, and by the middle of July 
scarcely a dozen beetles are seen where there were 
thousands. I might have supposed it a casual thing, 
if I had had but one season’s experience ; but in 
1846 it was the same as in 1845, the same abundance 
at precisely the same season, and with the same local 
limits. It is worthy of record, that at the same time 
and place the leaves of the trees were studded with 
shelled Mollusca, of the genera Helix^ Cylindrella, 
Helicina, Cyclostoma ^ &c., as I never saw them else- 
where. 
It is not improbable that some peculiarities in the 
geological or the botanical character of this region 
