TOBAGO—SARGASSO SEA 
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a Sphex, and a Wasp, Notogonia sp., and Polybia occidentalis, Oliv. The 
big Xylocopa aeneipennis, De Geer, as might have been expected, 
preferred a larger and more gaudy flower, and accordingly haunted 
the purple blossom of a Papilionaceous shrub. At Cocoa Wattie I 
captured a small black Pompilid, Salius (. Hemisalius) opacifrons, 
Pox. 
In a ditch some two miles to the east of Scarborough I found a 
specimen of Uroxys which is not to be matched by any in the British 
Museum. At Cocoa Wattie I took a Photinus , to which Mr. Gahan 
cannot assign a name, and a Diabrotica, which he considers new. 
Mr. Sworder found in a tank a male Phengodes pulchellus, Gerht., 
which exhibited a green light from the under surface of the middle 
of the abdomen; the light was constant, but appeared to be under 
the control of the insect. He also, when out with me, dug out of 
rotten wood the abundant Hew World beetle, Scalmus (. Ninus ) 
interstitialis; the specimens were small, one of them remarkably so. 
In contrast with the last he took in the same surroundings Passalus 
interruptus , Linn., a very large insect of which I afterwards found a 
dead specimen at the foot of the lighthouse in Port George. A 
Dynastid beetle came to light at Cocoa Wattie, which may be a form 
of Aegopsis trinidadensis, Sternb., but does not agree exactly either 
with that species or with A. curvicornis, Westw. Several Coreid 
bugs, Jadera aeola, Dali., came to the lamp. That evening Mr. 
Sworder easily convinced me of the advantage of placing the attract¬ 
ing lamp on a white sheet; many insects that would otherwise 
probably escape are quite conspicuous on the sheet. 
When homeward bound we made our first acquaintance with the 
Sargasso, or Gulf-weed. Like many other things of which much has 
been heard, it hardly came up to expectations. For a day or two 
we saw quite small patches at long intervals, then larger masses, 
but at its best there was nothing that the most scientific, or even 
the most unscientific imagination could picture as affording lurking 
places for such fearsome monsters as we know by the old charts 
were commonplace to the Elizabethan sea-dogs. Yet its colour is 
brilliant and looks all the more so by contrast with the blue sea. A 
quarter-master constructed for me a small grapnel out of stout wire, 
with which I proceeded to fish. I made many and many a cast, and 
was surprised at the difficulty of catching any weed, and the still 
greater difficulty of bringing it to deck. When a ship is going at 
even such a moderate pace as 13 or 14 knots, fishing is by no means 
easy, and the sea seems at the last moment to snatch from the 
