138 A NATURALIST IN MEXICO. 



inches long, flat and leathery in texture ; others were hard 

 as stone. What attracted our attention chiefly were the 

 colossal trees. The general run of trees had not remarka- 

 bly thick stems ; the great height to which they grew with- 

 out throwing out a branch was a much more noticeable 

 feature than their thickness ; but at intervals of a rod or 

 two a veritable giant towered up to a height of a hundred 

 and fifty feet. 



Birds here were very numerous. Beautiful cassiques 

 were continually flying about from tree to tree, uttering 

 their peculiar note, which sounded like the creaking of a 

 rusty hinge. On almost every tall tree we saw a hawk or 

 buzzard. Pretty paroquets were very plentiful, and it 

 was amusing to watch the activity with which they climbed 

 about over the trees, and how suddenly and simultaneously 

 they flew away when alarmed. Their plumage was so 

 nearly the color of the foliage that it was sometimes im- 

 possible to see them, though one might have seen them 

 enter a tree, and hear them twittering overhead, and, after 

 gazing until one's patience was exhausted, see them fly off 

 with a scream of triumph. The Molluscan genera Physa 

 and Planorhis were very common. 



Late in the afternoon of the second day we returned to 

 Veracruz, and secured accommodations in the Hotel Uni- 

 versal, fronting the Plaza Major. 



