which lie in wait for them, proceed to the task of founding new
colonies. Ants and white ants have much that is analogous in
their modes of life-- they belong, however, to two widely
different orders of insects, strongly contrasted in their
structure and manner of growth.

I amassed at Caripi a very large collection of beautiful and
curious insects, amounting altogether to about twelve hundred
species. The number of Coleoptera was remarkable, seeing that
this order is so poorly represented near Para. I attributed their
abundance to the number of new clearings made in the virgin
forest by the native settlers. The felled timber attracts
lignivorous insects, and these draw in their train the predaceous
species of various families. As a general rule, the species were
smaller and much less brilliant in colours than those of Mexico
and South Brazil. The species too, although numerous, were not
represented by great numbers of individuals; they were also
extremely nimble, and therefore much less easy of capture than
insects of the same order in temperate climates. The carnivorous
beetles at Caripi were, like those of Para, chiefly arboreal.
Most of them exhibited a beautiful contrivance for enabling them
to cling to and run over smooth or flexible surfaces, such as
leaves. Their tarsi or feet are broad, and furnished beneath with
a brush of short stiff hairs; while their claws are toothed in
the form of a comb, adapting them for clinging to the smooth
edges of leaves, the joint of the foot which precedes the claw
being cleft so as to allow free play to the claw in grasping. The
common dung-beetles at Caripi, which flew about in the evening
like the Geotrupes, the familiar "shard-borne beetle with his
drowsy hum" of our English lanes, were of colossal size and