The Lesser Antilles 339 



visit to some of these hospitable mansions, when he 

 accompanied his invalid brother to the South. The 

 streets of the business portion of Bridgetown are filled 

 with buildings of a substantial character built from 

 coral-rock. There is an air of English solidity about 

 the banks and warehouses. The residential portions 

 of the city contain many pleasant homes surrounded by 

 beautiful gardens full of blooming shrubs and flowers. 

 Fine trees shade most of the thoroughfares. Among 

 the shade-trees I noticed some magnificent specimens of 

 the mahogany-tree (Swietenia) and the silk-cottonwood 

 (Bombax ceiba), the latter with their trunks sur- 

 rounded by wide and thin buttresses of wood which 

 nature provides to serve the purpose of flying-arches 

 with which to support their mighty columns. 



Taking a vehicle we started out on a tour of explora- 

 tion. We visited the markets. Naturalists generally 

 find the vegetable and fish-markets in strange lands 

 instructive. My friends, Dr. D. Starr Jordan and Dr. 

 C. H. Eigenmann, who are two of the leading ichthy- 

 ologists of the world, have told me that they make it a 

 point to visit the fish-markets on their travels, and many 

 species new to science have been found by them in 

 fish-stalls, by the former in the Orient, by the latter in 

 South America. The venders of fish in the West 

 Indian Islands have a large number of fine species of 

 food-fishes at their command. Spanish mackerel, 

 snappers of various species, pompanos, and flying-fish 

 were on sale at Bridgetown. In the fruit-stalls were 

 various kinds of tropical vegetables and fruits which 

 interested. There were three species of anonaceous 

 fruits, the Sour-sop (Anona muricata), the Sweet-sop 

 (Anona squamosa), and the Custard-apple (Anona 

 reticulata). With the latter we had already formed 



