A NATURALIST'S EXCURSION IN DOMINICA. 685 



ers and the luster of their leaves. In some epiphytal orchids, aroids, 

 and fernSj the roots weave themselves on their bark support into some- 

 thing like birds' nests, in which are gradually accumulated dead leaves 

 and other organic detritus, to form a humus. The fourth class, to 

 which the bromelias belong, is distinguished from all the others by the 

 fact that water and food are taken up by the leaves, while the roots 

 are either not developed, or are reduced to mere organs of attachment. 

 The Tillandsia usneoides (" Spanish moss "), which, having no roots, 

 hangs from the limbs, is clothed with a silver-gray hair, having shield- 

 like processes which represent water-absorbing organs. Other epiphytic 

 bromelias have similar absorptive vessels, and special provisions in the 

 dish-like arrangement of the leaf -rosettes for storing rain-water and 

 dew and more solid food for a considerable time. One may be con- 

 vinced in a very instructive manner of the presence of water in these 

 leaf-basins, by bending down a limb covered with epiphytes, when, 

 unless he proceeds very carefully, he will receive a quart or more of 

 water on his head. We learn from these considerations that these 

 epiphytes are not real parasites, but only tenant forms, which, fix- 

 ing their homes on other plants, derive their food support from the 

 atmosphere and from dead matter. There are, however, besides 

 these, real parasites at Laudat, which prey upon the living wood of 

 the trees. 



Among the forms of animal life at Laudat are three humming- 

 birds, one of which is so tame that the children catch it in their 

 hands, and another is hardly two inches long ; and, in sharp contrast 

 with them, the largest of all insects. This is a beetle, which ento- 

 mologists have named, in recognition of its gigantic size and great 

 strength, Dynastes Hercides. The male is armed, like our stag-beetles, 

 with two immense tusk-like processes on the head, the physiological 

 significance of which is unknown. The female is unarmed, and of 

 much more slender constitution. 



So absorbed were we in the contemplation of the new forms of life 

 around us that we would have been unmindful that the afternoon was 

 passing away were it not that a bird called out to inform us that 

 the sun would set in half an hour, and ten minutes later it would be 

 dark. The sunset-bird, as the American Ober, who discovered it in 

 this island, has named it in his " Camps in the Caribees," utters its 

 peculiar cry only twice during the day — half an hour before sunrise, 

 and as long before sunset — and keeps complete silence for the rest of 

 the day. For a very brief interval after sunset the air is perfectly 

 clear and transparent, and the light-effects are most picturesque ; then, 

 as if some signal had been given, begins the concert of the tree-frogs 

 and locusts, and finally darkness settles over the landscape, to be broken 

 up shortly by the rising of the moon, whose light gives a new series 

 of picturesque effects. 



Early in the morning we are awakened for a bath at the junction 



