ST. THOMAS. 15 



I went out on a shooting excursion to the opposite side of 

 the island in pursuit of wild goats. The only game we brought 

 back was a wild common fowl which I had shot in the bushes. 

 Goats, pigs, guinea fowl, and the domestic fowl breed in the 

 wild condition in various parts of the island, being sprung, as 

 I was told, in most instances, from stock which has escaped and 

 been scattered during hurricanes. The ferine fowls are very wary 

 like their progenitors, the Indian Jungle-fowl, and are not at all 

 easy to shoot. We sat down to lunch on the shore. Flights of 

 the brown pelicans (Pelicanus fuscus), kept passing over our 

 heads, flying always almost exactly over the same spot on their 

 way from one feeding ground to another. We shot a number of 

 them as they flew over at the desire of the German overseer of 

 the farm where we had left our horses, who wanted the birds for 

 eating. I should have thought a pelican to have been, next to a 

 vulture, almost the least palatable of birds, but the man said 

 they were very good. There were about 300 tame goats at the 

 farm, and a few cows. The milk was sent into the town every 

 morning in wine bottles and fetched about eighteen pence a 

 bottle. 



Large silk cotton trees (Eriodendron) are common, growing 

 along the road-sides in St. Thomas. These trees are shaped 

 something like walnut trees, but have a rough bark. They bear 

 large green pods full of a substance like cotton. Perched in the 

 forks and all over their branches are numerous epiphytes of the 

 pine-apple order (Bromeliacece). On the far side of the island 

 I saw several * Sand-box " trees (Hura crepitans). The tree is 

 one of the Euplwrbiacew, allied to our Spurges, and has a 

 poisonous irritant juice ; but its most remarkable peculiarity is 

 its fruit. A number of seed capsules, shaped like the quarters of 

 an orange, are arranged together side by side as in an orange, so 

 as to form a globular fruit. When the fruit has become quite 

 ripe and dry, suddenly all the capsules split up the back, opening 

 with a strong spring, and the whole fruit flies asunder, scattering 

 its seeds for a distance of several yards, and making a noise like 

 the report of a pistol. I gathered one of the fruits which is 

 called commonly " Sand-box," because it was formerly used for 

 holding sand to sift over writing instead of blotting-paper. It 



