The Sierra Maestra. 257 



ploiters of tropical woods may very well make an effort, through ar- 

 chitects and furniture manufacturers to introduce their various 

 woods, instead of merely extracting, as is usual, the two most valu- 

 able, or better, the two that are established in the market. Cedar 

 and Mahogany. 



To speak of forestry in connection with such undeveloped condi- 

 tions would be like putting on a dress coat in camp. There is a large 

 portion of this country, although mountainous and rough, which is 

 fit for pasture, and change into that useful employment of the soil, 

 besides for raising of tropical fruits, cocoa, coffee, etc., is more like- 

 ly to prove profitable. Indeed, almost any crop of the South or the 

 North could be successfully grown in the bottoms and depressions, 

 but the hillsides are best turned into grass, as some are now, covered 

 with that most nutritious and most prolific of all grasses, the Guinea 

 grass Panicum maximum Jacq., which has found its way from more 

 Southern climes unto the burnt areas, made by the insurgents of 

 1868, when retiring into these mountain fastnesses from the Span- 

 iards. 



Naturally for mere protective purposes, certain parts should be 

 kept under forest cover, and this will require nothing but keeping 

 out the fire, for as the commercial trees are removed, Mui and Yaya 

 will take care to provide the cover. Fire, it seems, does not spread 

 easily, for, although in the annual firing of the pastures to burn off 

 the dead grass, fires must run into the adjoining woods, the exten- 

 sion of open ground appears to be but slow. 



A few notes on animal life may prove of interest. In the month 

 of September, if not at other times, nature is here sadly silent; ex- 

 cept for the chatter of a most loquacious crow {Corvus gundlachi) 

 near the seashore, and the most unharmonious screechings of a long- 

 tailed rusty-brown jay, and the piping of some shorebirds, there is 

 little birdlife in the lower levels. But the solitude of the high range 

 is deliciously made melodious by the morning song of the Solitaire 

 {Myiadeste spec), a veritable nightingale; or was it the song of the 

 equally melodious blue or brown thrush.^ In the spring, it is said, 

 the woods are teeming with pigeons, of which now but little was 

 seen. There is, however, noise enough at night, when the Crickets 

 and Katydids begin their concert, apparently more sonorous than 

 our own. At night, too, most striking is the Cucuyo, the electric 

 light bug, emitting from his eyes enough light to read by. 



