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a Trip to the West Indies. 23 
are numerous ; the principal being bananas, sapodilla, mangoes, 
avocado pears, bread-fruit, shaddock, guava, hog-plum, oranges, 
custard apples, malacca apples, melons, sour-sop, pineapples, 
belle apples, and star apples. Vegetables are also plentiful, 
being: pigeon peas, sweet potatoes, christophenes, papaw, 
plantains, tannias, cassava, cush-cush, tomatoes, Indian corn, 
ochroes, yams, pumpkins, &c. The animals are few, and only 
one of any size, the lappe, agouti, squirrel, porcupine, monkeys, 
deer, matapurio, tiger-cat, armadillo, mangrove dog, little ant- 
eater, opossum, wood-dog, bat. 
The birds are numerous, the most common being the ‘*Qu’est 
ce qui dit” (‘who says”). This I think is the most common 
bird in the islands, and its note is heard continuously all day 
long. Then we have the corbeau, or black vulture, the most 
miserable-looking bird ever created. There are two varieties— 
those that inhabit the towns, and sit perched on the roofs of the 
houses and telegraph-poles, and when hungry hunt about the 
Streets after any filth they may find; and the variety that lives 
in the fields away from the town ; they are wonderful flyers, and 
wherever a dead animal is a flock of these corbeaux will soon be 
hovering round. Then we have the campanero or bell-bird, so 
called from the metallic tone of its call, somewhat resembling a 
bell ; this bird is found only in the high woods. Then we have 
the mountain dove, with its most dismal cry, like a person in 
pain. Then we have no less than eighteen varieties of 
humming bird; the tick-bird, which is black, and somewhat 
resembles our blackbird, but is thicker made; this may always 
be found where cattle are feeding, and will follow closely in their 
footsteps, seeking the worms go disturbed. Then we have the 
washerwoman (a small black bird with a white head), the goat- 
sucker, the lucan, the flamingo, the stork, the ramier, the snipe, 
the plover, the quail, the parrot, the ortolan, the merle, the 
cormorant, the scissor or frigate-bird, the acravat or ringed- 
neck, the rosignal or God’s-bird, the grass-bird, the Colorado or 
cardinal-bird, and the Picoplat or silver-beak, and many others. 
The reptiles include some eighty species, among which are 
Sea-turtles, land tortoises, freshwater turtles, frogs, lizards, and 
snakes. We have only four deadly snakes, and these are found 
only in uncultivated parts of the island; the rest may be looked 
upon as harmless. Two varieties are, however, dangerous in 
their coil, viz. the boa constrictor, which I have seen up to 
twelve feet long, and the honillia or water-boa up to twenty feet. 
The deadly snakes are two, Mapipire zanana and Mapipire 
balsin, and two species of coral snake. Another harmless and 
rather common snake igs the whip-snake, taking its name from 
its resemblance to the thong of a whip; it is about a yard in 
length. 
Cc 
