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THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. XII. 



little imagination completed the likeness. The lady of 

 the house where we stayed at Matagalpa assured us she 

 had seen it, and that everything appertaining to a hull was 

 there. This she insisted on with a minuteness of detail 

 rather embarrassing to a fastidious auditor. 



Clambering down the rocks, we reached our horse and 

 mule, and started off again, passing over dry weedy hills. 

 One low tree, very characteristic of the dry savannahs, I 

 have only incidentally mentioned before. It is a species 

 of acacia, belonging to the section Gummiferce, with 

 bi-pinnate leaves, growing to a height of fifteen or twenty 

 feet. The branches and trunk are covered with strong 

 curved spines, set in pairs, from which it receives the 

 name of the bull's-horn thorn, they having a very strong 



THE BULL S-HORN THORN. 



resemblance to the horns of that quadruped. These 

 thorns are hollow, and are tenanted by ants, that make a 

 small hole for their entrance and exit near one end of the 

 thorn, and also burrow through the partition that separates 



