78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



prised me by depositing on tlie dressing table a number of living 

 young ones about as thick as a large cigarette and seven inches 

 long. In these little snakelings the instinct of self-defense was 

 born ; for, before they were a minute old, they stood up erect, 

 ready to strike like their parents. They were provided with poi- 

 son, too, but could not expand their hoods till they were a week 

 older. 



Dear, pretty, little venomous babies ! infant criminals of the 

 reptile kind they had no more knowledge of nor affection for 

 their mamma than if she were an old tree root or something else 

 inanimate lying in their way and troublesome to be climbed over. 

 Nor would the mother take the slightest notice of her interesting 

 family. Indeed, some of them she never saw at all. Most probably 

 she didn't know that they were any relations of hers, or she would 

 have shown them some little attention. 



REDONDA AND ITS PHOSPHATES. 



By FRED W. MOESE. 



REDONDA is a small island lying between Nevis and Mont- 

 serrat, in that cordon, commonly called the Windward Is- 

 lands, which keeps the Caribbean Sea apart from the Atlantic, 

 Ocean. It was discovered by Columbus, who named it after an 

 old Spanish cathedral instead of a saint, as he did so many of the 

 smaller West Indies. Some authors, however, claim that Redonda 

 means round, and that it was applied because of the domelike 

 appearance of the island. 



In the summer of 1890 the writer had the good fortune to spend 

 a week in the company of Prof. Charles H. Hitchcock on the rock 

 for rock it is and little else. But the rock contains phosphates, 

 which fact explains our visit to such an out-of-the-way place. I 

 call the island out of the way, because, after being invited by 

 Prof. Hitchcock to accompany him there, we could find no account 

 of it, excepting a casual mention in books on the West Indies. 

 From these brief descriptions the opinion was formed that it was 

 an uninhabited and almost inaccessible rock, furnishing a home 

 only for sea birds. We knew that phosphates were mined there, 

 because we had received specimens from cargoes shipped to this 

 country, but those did not enlighten us with regard to the mode 

 of life upon the rock, and it was with some misgivings that we 

 made our arrangements for a midsummer trip to the torrid zone, 

 with the prospect of roughing it under a tropical sun. 



The island was reached by taking the steamship Bermuda, 

 which makes the rounds of the Windward Islands, going to Mont- 



