COLLECTING IX CUBA 



105 



are not alone in the foreign invasion of 

 Cuba although from Guane to Guanta- 

 namo baseball has become the game of 

 the country. 



Supper was eaten at Alto Cedro just 

 before we took the clip down the moun- 

 tains to the south shore at Santiago. 

 The latter part of the journey was made 

 in darkness but retraversed by day 

 when going from Santiago to Guan- 

 tanamo. At the latter place I was met 

 by Mr. Ramsden and taken at once 

 to the large sugar estate of which he is 

 manager. Mr. Ramsden is a son of the 

 British consul who was so helpful to 

 Hobson's men after the sinking of the 

 Merrimac. He is an ardent naturalist, 

 having gathered together excellent col- 

 lections of many groups of Cuban ani- 

 mals but especially of birds, land 

 mollusks, butterflies and sphingid moths. 



What is even more to the point, he knows 

 what he has and the life of each in the 

 field. He put horses and a trained 

 negro assistant at my disposal for work 

 during the day in the forest back of the 

 cane fields and by night we collected the 

 insects which came to the light as disre- 

 gardful of the lights-out bell which rang 

 at nine as I was of the rising bell which 

 rang at four — interesting relics of slave 

 days and even then, not meant for guests 

 of the master. 



Mr. Ramsden seemed surprised at the 

 poor showing we had in butterflies. I 

 was ashamed of it myself, but when the 

 choice came to us between sitting down 

 and getting fifty specimens of small 

 things some of which are probably new 

 to science and chasing over rocks and 

 through thorns for a high-flying Papilio 

 — beautiful though it was — we us- 



Limestone caves in the mountains north of Vlnales 



