about half a dozen kinds, are blown across, and become perfect pests to the town's people for two or three nights, swarming about the lights in every chamber. They get under one's clothing, or down one's back, and pass from the oil-lamp on to the furniture, books, and papers, smearing everything they touch. The open shops facing the beach become filled with them, and customers have to make a dash in and out through the showers that fall about the large brass lamps over the counter, when they want to make a purchase. The species are certainly not indigenous to the eastern side of the river; the hosts soon disappear; those which cannot get back must perish helplessly, for the soil, vegetation, and climate of the Santarem side are ill suited to the inhabitants of the opposite shore.
The pools I have mentioned were tenanted by a considerable variety of insects.[1] I found also a very large number, chiefly of carnivorous land-beetles under the pebbles and rejectamenta along the edge of the water during my many rambles. I was much struck with the similarity of the Dragon-flies (whose early states are passed in the water) to those of Britain. A species of Libellula with pointed tail, which darted about over the bushes near the ponds, is very closely
- ↑ The water-beetles found in the pools belonged to seventeen genera, thirteen of which are European . Those European genera which form the greater part of the pond population in Coleoptera in northern latitudes, are quite absent in the Amazons region: these are, Haliplus, Cnemidotus, Pelobius, Noterus, Hybius, Agabus, Colymbetes, Dyticus, and Acilius: Hydropori, also, are very rare. The most common species belong to the genera Hydracanthus, Copelatus, Cybister, Tropisternus, and Berosus, three of which are unknown in Europe.
