Where The Sugar-Palms Were Dripping With Sap,
Flies Congregated In Immense Numbers, And It Was By Spending Half
An Hour At These When I Had The Time To Spare, That I Obtained
The Finest And Most Remarkable Collection Of This Group Of
Insects That I Have Ever Made.
Then what delightful hours I passed wandering up and down the dry
river-courses, full of water-holes and rocks and fallen trees,
and overshadowed by magnificent vegetation.
I soon got to know
every hole and rock and stump, and came up to each with cautious
step and bated breath to see what treasures it would produce. At
one place I would find a little crowd of the rare butterfly
Tachyris zarinda, which would rise up at my approach, and display
their vivid orange and cinnabar-red wings, while among them would
flutter a few of the fine blue-banded Papilios. Where leafy
branches hung over the gully, I might expect to find a grand
Ornithoptera at rest and an easy prey. At certain rotten trunks I
was sure to get the curious little tiger beetle, Therates
flavilabris. In the denser thickets I would capture the small
metal-blue butterflies (Amblypodia) sitting on the leaves, as
well as some rare and beautiful leaf-beetles of the families
Hispidae and Chrysomelidae.
I found that the rotten jack-fruits were very attractive to many
beetles, and used to split them partly open and lay them about in
the forest near my house to rot.
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