COLLECTING IN CUBA 



TEN THOUSAND INSECTS COLLECTED PRELIMINARY TO A COMPARA- 

 TIVE STUDY OF THE FAUNAS OF FLORIDA AND CUBA 



By Frank E. Lutz 



THE work which the Museum and 

 the outside entomologists who 

 have kindly joined with the 

 Museum have been doing on the insects 

 of Florida, naturally raises questions as 

 to the relationships between this fauna 

 and those of other regions. The large 

 island of Cuba lies not much over a 

 hundred miles to the south and yet, 

 judging from the published records, 

 there are very few species common to 

 the two places. One of the reasons for 

 this is that Cuban records are largely 

 from tropical forests and precipitous 

 mountains, while Florida is made up 

 for the most part of either swamps or 

 open pine-palmetto woods on a level 

 sandy plain. If extensive stretches of 

 the latter environments existed in Cuba, 

 especially in the western part without 

 a goodly percentage of Floridian insects 

 the condition was in urgent need of ex- 

 planation. We learned from Dr. Na- 

 thaniel Britton that similar environ- 

 ments are found west of Havana and 

 after receiving valuable suggestions from 

 him, Mr. Charles \V. Leng and the writer 

 started out to see what could be found. 



As a matter of course one of the first 

 things we did after reaching Havana 

 was to call on Dr. Carlos de la Torre 

 than whom no one is more familiar with 

 Cuban natural history or more willing 

 and able to help other students of it. 

 Unfortunately the necessity of giving 

 college examination^ prevented his going 

 to the field with us and we started out 

 alone — almost regretting that Cuba 

 has such an excellent school system. 



A rural electric road took us about 

 thirty-six miles to Guanajay in the east- 



ern foothills of the Cordillera de los Or- 

 ganos, the mountains of western Cuba, 

 and an automobile stage from there to the 

 shore at Cabaiias. This stage ride is a 

 pleasant one through fertile thoroughly- . 

 cultivated country, and owing to the 

 poor condition of the road, is rather 

 exciting. Through the kindness of 

 friends of the Museum, we were given 

 lodgings in the office building of a large 

 sugar plantation at Cabanas. The 

 miles upon miles of waving fields and 

 the large factory where cane goes in and 

 sugar comes out were interesting, but the 

 important thing for us was the shore. 

 Mangrove swamps were within walking 

 distance and by hiring a sailboat for 

 "whatever you would be pleased to 

 give" (provided it was enough), we 

 reached the strip of sandy beach at the 

 mouth of the harbor. At the same time 

 ^Messrs. William T. Da\is and Charles 

 E. Sleight were collecting on the Florida 

 Keys just across the strait. They too 

 were in mangrove swamps and on sandy 

 beaches. Thanks to this arrangement 

 as nearly an exact comparison as it 

 seems possible to get can be made for 

 this season of the year and these envi- 

 ronments. 



But the upland here is not the upland 

 of Florida, so we returned to Havana 

 and set out the next day for Pinar del 

 Rio, capital of the province of the same 

 name. The railroad nearly crosses the 

 island in the low and relatively level 

 province of Havana to get around the 

 eastern ends of the mountains before it 

 turns west. The ride to Pinar is through 

 country largely given over to tobacco; 

 by far the dominant tree is the royal 



99 



