104 SAURIA. IGUANADiE. 



a great part of the subsistence of the inhabitants 

 of the Bahama Islands ; for which purpose they 

 visit many of the remote kayes and islands in their 

 sloops to catch them, which they do by dogs 

 trained up for that purpose, and which are so 

 dexterous as not often to kill them. If they do 

 so, however, the Guanas serve only for present 

 use ; if otherwise, they sew up their mouths to 

 prevent their biting, and put them into the 

 hold of their sloop, until they have obtained a 

 sufficient number, which they either carry alive 

 for sale to Carolina, or salt and barrel up for the 

 use of their families at home. These Guanas feed 

 wholly on vegetables and fruit, especially on a 

 particular kind of fungus growing at the roots of 

 trees, and on the fruits of the different kinds of 

 Ananas : their flesh is easy of digestion, delicate, 

 and well tasted. They are sometimes roasted, but 

 the more common mode is to boil them, taking 

 out the fat, which is melted and clarified and put 

 into a dish, into which they dip the flesh of the 

 Guana as they eat it. Though not amphibious, 

 they are said to keep under water above an hour. 

 They cannot run fast, and their holes are a greater 

 security to them than their heels. They are so 

 impatient of cold that they rarely appear out of 

 their holes but when the sun shines."* 



Brown, in his " History of Jamaica" (1756), 

 says that the Guana lives for a considerable time 

 without food, and changes its colour with the 

 weather, or the natural moisture of its place of 

 residence. *' I have kept," he adds, " a grown 

 Guana about the house for more than two months : 

 it was very fierce and ill-natured at the beginning, 



* " Natural History of Carolina," &c. 



