beautiful colours. One kind had a long spear-shaped horn
projecting from the crown of its head (Phanaeus lancifer). A blow
from this fellow, as he came heavily flying along, was never very
pleasant. All the tribes of beetles which feed on vegetable
substances, fresh or decayed, were very numerous. The most
beautiful of these, but not the most common, were the
Longicornes; very graceful insects, having slender bodies and
long antennae, often ornamented with fringes and tufts of hair.
They were found on flowers, on trunks of trees, or flying about
the new clearings. One small species (Coremia hirtipes) has a
tuft of hairs on its hind legs, while many of its sister species
have a similar ornament on the antennae. It suggests curious
reflections when we see an ornament like the feather of a
grenadier's cap situated on one part of the body in one species,
and in a totally different part in nearly allied ones. I tried in
vain to discover the use of these curious brush-like decorations.
On the trunk of a living leguminous tree, Petzell found a number
of a very rare and handsome species, the Platysternus hebraeus,
which is of a broad shape, coloured ochreous, but spotted and
striped with black, so as to resemble a domino. On the felled
trunks of trees, swarms of gilded-green Longicornes occurred, of
small size (Chrysoprasis), which looked like miniature musk-
beetles, and, indeed, are closely allied to those well-known
European insects.

At length, on the 12th of February, I left Caripi, my Negro and
Indian neighbours bidding me a warm "adios." I had passed a
delightful time, notwithstanding the many privations undergone in
the way of food. The wet season had now set in; the lowlands and
islands would soon become flooded daily at high water, and the