48 '' TRIGONOCEPHALUS LANCEOLATUS.*' 



footpath being lier favourite spot. Along this she crawls 

 slowly, dropping her young one by one on the way. As 

 soon as the last has been brought forth, the faint and hun- 

 gry mother turns in her onward stride and devours the first 

 of her brood that meets her sight, and continues this un- 

 natural course until satiated with her repast, or she finds 

 no more of her offspring wherewith to glut her rapacity, 

 Naturally many of them, three-fourths at least, escape, and 

 these the strongest, — a clear case of the survival of the fittest. 

 This has been observed by several planters in St. Lucia, and 

 has been mentioned to me independently by Mr. E. S. Gor- 

 don, Mr. A. E,. Marucheau, and Mr. Marius Devaux, and 

 others of the colony. 



Since the Government reward alluded to proved a failure, 

 it remained a subject for private enterprise how best to rid 

 the colonies of St. Lucia and Martinique of so formidable a 

 pest. An attempt was made about 1870 by Mr. John Good- 

 man, of Pointe Sable Estate, to introduce into the island a 

 species of frog which had been found useful in India, as sup- 

 plying a poisonous food for poisonous snakes. At infinite 

 trouble and expense he had about a dozen couples imported 

 to St. Lucia, where he located them in a large pond close 

 to his house, carefully guarding and feeding them. These 

 multiplied to an alarming extent, but the experiment can 

 never prove very successful, inasmuch as the frog is con- 

 tented with the marshy pools and ponds of the valley, find- 

 ing there abundant material for food, while the Fer-de- 

 lance retreats to the mountain tojDS, where it can remain 

 unmolested. Later still the mongoose has been introduced 

 by the Government, at the initiation of Sir Roger Golds- 

 worthy, but with what result I have not heard. Yet the 

 Eer-de-lance has one formidable enemy. This is another 

 snake called the Cribo, the Spilotes variabilis. The two 



