41 



Some roots of C^itsta^ species are over 30 feet in length, hanging 

 downwards in the air. 



AntJiurium lanceolatum is very abundant. 



114.-NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 



No. 5. — The " Manicou," BidelpTiys marstipialis, Linn. — These- 

 animals are frequent visitors to our Gardens and annually destroy quan- 

 tities of all kinds of fruit and seeds. They are especially fond of the fruit 

 of Flacourtia Eamontchi or " Governor Plum," and also of the Pomme 

 Malac or " Malacca Apple," Eugenia Malaccensis. They are also 

 frequent visitors to the fowl roosts of the vicinity, and the screaming 

 of poultry in the dead hours of the night is not an unfrequent 

 occurrence for once in the grip of the animal a chicken has but little 

 chance for its life. At some seasons of the year the animals are very 

 numerous and do considerable damage, as many as eight or ten full 

 grown animals having been destroyed in one week in the garden. 

 The animal is a true marsupial, and carries its young in a pouch like 

 the Kangaroo of Australia. Our local readers are of course conversant 

 with the habits of the animal under discussion, but some of our 

 correspondents abroad to whom our bulletins go in exchange will 

 learn perhaps for the first time of a depredator with whom every 

 Trinidad cultivator has, more or less, to count. 



No. 6. — " Manicou Gros Yeux" or " Manicou Big Eyes" is another 

 animal which preys upon our fruit, although in much less degree 

 than its larger brother. This animal has lately been named by Mr. 

 Oldfield Thomas from a specimen sent home from the Gardens to the 

 British Museum in 1891 as Didelpliijs trinitatis, Thomas, (new species) 

 as it has been found to differ in considerable degree from a similar 

 species found upon the mainland. Our animal is about the size of an 

 ordinary rat, and is curious and ungain looking. It is especially fond 

 of the fruit of the Mango, from which it eats a small piece of the 

 ripest side while hanging on the tree, thus causing the loss of 

 numerous fruit. From the proximity of our Gardens to wood lands we 

 are much more subject to the inroads of such visitors than on estates 

 where a large extent of cleared ground exists on the outskirts. 



Another species much resembling D. trinitatis but much smaller, 

 named Didelphjs murina, Linn., has been captured in the neighbour- 

 hood of Princes Town, but has not yet been seen within the boundaries 

 of the Gardens. 



