BRITISH HONDURAS. 25 
are covered. Still further inland are the ‘ Cahoon Ridges,’ clothed with palm trees, 
while beyond are broad savannas studded with clumps of trees and intersected with 
streams. The Manatee Hills rise in a further succession of ridges parallel to the 
coast, and are from 800 to 1000 feet in height, while to the south the Coxcomb 
Mountains attain an altitude of 4000 feet; further inland there are said to be a 
succession of valleys and hills at altitudes varying from 1200 to over 3000 feet above 
sea-level, but this part is very imperfectly known. The climate near the coast is 
generally hot and damp, but tempered by the trade winds, and though the annual 
rainfall is said to be about 100 inches, the country is tolerably healthy. Unlike the 
rest of Central America, British Honduras is not subject to earthquakes ; it appears 
to be entirely outside the volcanic area, which otherwise extends from Mexico to 
Western South America. 
In 1862 Salvin, as stated on p. 5, went from Coban by way of Peten, down the 
Belize River to the town of Belize on the coast, but unfortunately he left no details of 
the country through which he passed. His intention was to proceed direct to Yzabal, 
and thence back to the interior of Guatemala, but finding no vessel ready to sail, he 
hired a schooner and occupied the time in exploring some of the numerous atolls and 
coral-reefs which line the coast, and later published an interesting account of this 
expedition in ‘The Ibis’ for 1864. He described the Barrier Reef as extending 
from Ambergis Cay to Ranguana Cay, its most northerly point; this last cay is twenty- 
five miles from the coast, so that the reef, instead of running more or less parallel with 
it, forms an angle enclosing a long lagoon, which, as weil as the reef, is studded with 
numerous cays. Nearly due east of the town of Belize, outside the Barrier Reef, and 
separated from it by a deep channel, lies the Atoll of Turneff, within which several 
lagoons are included. Fifteen miles eastward of Turneff lies another atoll, called 
Lighthouse Reef, on the eastern margin of which are four cays—Long Cay, Middle 
Cay, South-West Cay, and South-West-of-All Cay; the remainder of the reef consists 
of a line of breakers, showing here and there a stranded log or a protruding spit of 
sand. It will be easily understood that these reefs, many of which are covered with 
mangroves and coco-nut palms, form an ideal place for sea-birds, and as Salvin’s visit 
took place at the height of the breeding season, he procured a large number which he 
had not previously obtained. 
In addition to these sea-birds, Salvin mentions two humming-birds, two tyrants, 
a warbler, a mocking-bird, an osprey, an ibis, egrets, etc. ‘The paper quoted is too 
long to reprint in detail, but it is still the only account known to me describing 
the cays in question. His subsequent visit to the lagoons on the Pacific Coast of 
Guatemala in 1863 is referred to under the heading for that country. 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Introd. Vol., January 1918. E 
