villages, crowded with 180,000 negroes, except what I had afterwards better 

 opportunities of taking elsewhere. . I spent the whole of September in 

 Martinique, and the rest of the time up to the present date in Antigua. 



Martinique, the largest and most picturesque of the Antilles, with lofty 

 volcanic mountains, an attractive flora, including forests of almost Brazilian 

 magnificence, well watered, moderately peopled, cultivated only as to about 

 three-fifths of its surface, and without mosquitoes, appears at first sight the 

 beau-ideal of a tropical island, and I anticipated great entomological success 

 from its exploration. I have since, however, adopted much more moderate 

 views of the productiveness of that and other West Indian islands. Trinidad, 

 which I have not yet visited, is reported to possess a much more luxuriant 

 fauna; but it may be regarded by the naturalist as forming rather a 

 continuation of the continent, than as one of the Antilles. My quarters in 

 Martinique were fixed at Bourg du Precheur, a village at the foot of 

 Mt. Pelee, from which various romantic gorges lead up to the peak, and 

 were selected for the scene of operations. By repeatedly camping out on 

 the mountains, and by daily assiduity, I succeeded in obtaining a good 

 many of the local species, but the meagre results are not a little surprising 

 to a European, who learns for the first time that splendour of vegetation is 

 not uniformly accompanied with a proportionate luxuriance of animal life. 

 The climate at the elevation of a few thousand feet becomes very supportable, 

 subject to the drawback of sudden discharges of buckets full of rain, which 

 at the summit of the Pelee and the Pain de Sucre even assumed the form of 

 hail. A strong party is desirable in exploring these fastnesses, as the 

 cutlass must be laboriously used, as well to force a path through the 

 primaeval forest as to chop up poisonous serpents {Bothrops lanceolatus, 

 Wagl., belonging to the family of the Crotalida), which are dangerously 

 cornmon in Martinique. In various excursions I saw six, and one was 

 killed by a Frenchman in my company. The knowledge of their 

 existence and the necessity of constant caution are decided drawbacks to 

 enjoyment. 



The island of Antigua, which I have had much more leisure to examine, 

 is of a different_ and less attractive character. It is not of volcanic, but of 

 secondary formation, and therefore less elevated ; nevertheless, a range 

 of inferior mountains crosses its southern side. The vegetation is of a 

 much less striking character ; the woods which clothe the hill-sides consist 

 of smaller trees, and the plains are overrun with a tliorny acacia, cactuses, 

 and other growths adapted to a soil destitute of running water. The 

 majority of the insects are minute, and if they form (as they are said to 

 form) an outlying colony of the fauna of Guiana, they are stunted and 

 degenerate, representing the species of the American mainland in the 

 same sort of way as the outer Hebrides represent those of Great 

 Britain. 



