6 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Cli. I. 



ranges and with a good natural drainage is much more- 

 unhealthy, fevers being very prevalent. As at Grey- 

 town so at Pernambuco, the trade winds blow with much 

 regularity, and there are no hills nor hollow r s to interfere 

 with the movements of the air, so that miasmatic ex- 

 halations cannot accumulate. 



Surrounding the cleared portions around Greytown is- 

 a scrubby bush, amongst which are many guayava trees 

 (Psidium sp.) having a fruit like a small apple filled 

 with seeds, of a sub- acid flavour, from which the cele- 

 brated guava jelly is made. The fruit itself often 

 occasions severe fits of indigestion, and many of the 

 natives will not swallow the small seeds, but only the 

 pulpy portion, which is said to be harmless. I saw 

 another fruit growing here, a yellow berry about the size- 

 of a cherry, called " Nancito ' by the natives. It is 

 often preserved by them with spirit and eaten like 

 olives. Beyond the brushwood, which grows where the 

 original forest has been cut down, there are large trees- 

 covered with numerous epiphytes Tillandsias, orchids, 

 ferns, and a hundred others, that make every big tree an 

 aerial botanical garden. Great arums are perched on 

 the forks and send down roots like cords to the ground, 

 whilst lianas run from tree to tree or hang in loops and 

 folds like the disordered tackle of a ship. 



Green parrots fly over in screaming flocks, or nestle- 

 in loving couples amidst the foliage ; toucans hop along 

 the branches; turning their long, highly- coloured beaks 

 from side to side with an old-fashioned look, and beautiful 

 tanagers (RamphoccBlus passer inii) frequent the outskirts 

 of the forest, all velvety black, excepting a large patch 

 of fiery-red above the tail, which, renders the bird very 



