At noon we stopped for breakfast in a primeval forest with rather thin underbrush. Many small scarab beetles (_Canthon semiopacus_) were resting in the hollows of leaves with their branched antennæ raised, waiting apparently for some hint of an odor which should summon them to their mission of life—the depositing of their eggs in decaying flesh. Spinning through the aisles made by the giant columns of tree-trunks, were curious translucent pin-wheels, and not until we captured one in the butterfly net did we realize we were looking at the same attenuated forest dragon-flies (_Mecistogaster_ sp.) which had deceived us so completely five years ago in Mexico.[G] The movement of the long, narrow wings, with the spot of white at the tips was, to the eye, a circular revolving whirl, with the needle-sized body trailing behind. The white spots revolved rapidly, while the rest of the wings became a mere gray haze. These weird creatures, apparently so ethereal and fragile, were hunting for spiders, and their method was regular and methodical. From under leaves or from the heart of widespread webs, good-sized spiders were snatched. A momentary juggling with the strong legs, a single nip and the spider minus its abdomen dropped to the mould, while the dragon-fly alighted and sucked the juices of its victim. If we drew near one of these spiders on its web, it instantly darted away, sliding down a silken cable to the ground or dashing into some crevice, but the approach of the hovering dragon-fly, although rather deliberate, was unheeded, the spider remaining quiet until snatched from its place. On a tiny jungle creek we alarmed several large, blunt-nosed brown lizards, with low dorsal crests, which ran up into the branches to escape us. In this respect they differed from the big iguanas which always dropped with a resounding splash into the water at our approach. Near some wild plum trees whose fruit was ripe, we found tracks of deer, agoutis and some of the smaller cats. The fruit was yellow and oblong in shape with a large stone, and tasted the way a tonca bean smells—bitter and yet sweet—a strange concentrated essence of the tropics which excited one, in that it differed so completely from the taste of any other fruit. Morphos became more abundant from this point on. Some were wholly iridescent blue above—a blinding, flashing mirror of azure; others were crossed by a broad band of black, while in a third species the blue was reduced to a narrow bar down the centre of the wing. Great yellow swallow-tailed butterflies and exquisite smaller ones flew about us. The crocodiles of the Aremu were all small, none over three feet, and were all black in color. [Illustration: FIG. 117. A WILDERNESS PASSION FLOWER—SIMITÚ.]