49 
My first essay to collect was in the botanical gardens, until I could 
get a steamer to take me to Bartica, on the Essequibo. Having, in 
lH9b, made such good bags in the Trinidad Botanical Gardens, I ex¬ 
pected great things from similar gardens on the mainland, but neither 
gieat things nor little things were there, and it looked as if lepidoptera 
had been forbidden to enter the garden. A call on Mr. Jenman, the 
superintendent, elicited the fact that no rain to speak of had fallen for 
nearly six months, and that the usual short wet season of December 
and January had not taken place at all. This was sad news to me, 
as I knew the best collecting period in this part of the world was im¬ 
mediately following the wet seasons, and as I had purposely timed 
myself to arrive at such a period the news of a long drought was not 
reassuring for good collecting. Every corner of the very extensive 
gardens was scanned for what it might possess entomologically; and 
e\er\ damp corner spied out, these being the most likely places. 
Everywhere it was the same—no lepidoptera at all ; a few neuroptera 
skimmed over some of the broad dykes that drain the grounds, and 
that was all that was visible entomologically, but botanically these 
dykes contained one of nature’s greatest wonders — the Victoria 
rei/ia. Imagine a dyke a quarter of a mile long and ten feet wide 
completely covered with specimens of this wonderful plant. It so 
happened I saw the plants at their best, with their flower spikes fully 
developed. \ isitors to our Kew Gardens are generally struck with the 
much-prized single plant, with some few leaves, which has every at¬ 
tention bestowed upon it to keep it alive, but in Guiana it is difficult 
to keep any dyke free from this weed, and one of the annual jobs on a 
large sugar estate is to clear out the I ictnria rei/ia from all the canals, 
dykes, and ditches which intersect the country. It seems most re¬ 
markable how it was that this plant did not find its way naturally to 
these places, seeing how quickly it has spread everywhere from the 
Botanical Gardens where it was introduced from the Berbice river, 
less than a hundred miles away, and with a perfectly fiat country in- 
Gen ening. Having lully satisfied myself that there were no lepidop¬ 
tera, or practically none, in the gardens, 1 gave the canal, which 
supplies a large quantity of water to Georgetown, some attention. It 
was quickly ascertained that the neuroptera were strongly represented, 
and for the time being l became a neuropterist, or, at any rate, a 
collector of the order, boon, however, some lepidoptera came to the 
net, and the season may be said to have opened with the capture of 
Ihecla marsi/as and Helicopis cu pi-do. Some // experiidae of the sub¬ 
family of Paiiiphilinae were also in evidence, but by this time disap¬ 
pointment was irresistible, and there were many longings for the day' 
to come round when the steamer was to leave for Bartica. 
The day arrived, and having embarked we were quickly out of the 
Demerara river and making for the mouth of the Essequibo. It soon 
became obvious that this was more the sort of country for the ento¬ 
mologist and the naturalist generally. Seen from the steamer, the 
forests that clothe the banks seem quite impenetrable, but that is not 
so. On the edr/e of the rivers the forest certainly presents a perfect 
wall of vegetation, as there all sorts of climbing plants interlace the 
trees, but a short distance back the trees are not molested with these 
climbers, and for the most part one can progress without much hinder- 
ance. Bartica was reached in about nine hours on this occasion, and 
