ANI3HAL KINGDOM. 115 



which many die ; but they soon detect the mistake, and never 

 touch it again. Fumigations with sulphur, or with sulphur and 

 nitre, are perhaps the simplest means of destroying the parasol- 

 ants. For this purpose, a sort of small furnace is prepared — an 

 old iron kettle being the best : a hole is made at the bottom, and 

 the kettle turned upside down on one of the passages or openings 

 of the township. Sulphur alone, or sulphur mixed with nitre, 

 is placed in it with coals below, and a pair of bellows adapted for 

 keeping up combustion : every aperture or fissure through which 

 the smoke may escape is cemented with clay, and the fumigation 

 then commences : it must continue at intervals for two or three 

 days before there can be an assurance of success. The most 

 certain means perhaps is to dig up the nest to the foundation, 

 and, by pouring on water, to form with the clay a batter of 

 mortar, in which the ants are stifled and buried ; but, in this 

 case, the first requisite is a good supply of water ; and to dig up 

 a large ants' nest is not a trifle, particularly as the ants become 

 wild when disturbed, and bite unmercifully. 



Annelida. — A species of leech has been found here in ponds 

 and brooks : it is of a dark colour, and bears a very great resem- 

 blance to the horse-leech. 



Testacese. — It will only be necessary to mention those which 

 are used as food, and a few terrestrial or fluviatile conchiferae. 

 Of the former class are oysters, mussels, and two small bivalves 

 called here Palourdes, or cockles, and Chip-chips. Oysters are 

 generally met with in abundance, adhering to the roots of the 

 mangrove trees, either in small bays, or at the outlets of rivers 

 and creeks : those taken in Scotland Bay, in the first Boca, and 

 at the Rivers Moruga and Guataro, are much esteemed, some of 

 them being very large ; but they become sweetish during the 

 rainy season, at which time a large proportion of fresh water 

 is mixed with the salt. Mussels are very large, and are dug 

 from the sand or mud along the sea-shore, as also the Palourdes 

 jor cockles, and the chip-chips — the latter a roseate triangular 

 bivalve. 



Amongst our terrestrial gasteropoda is a very large helix, 

 about the size of a goose's egg : there are also several fluviatile 

 ni valve conchiferae. 



It may perhaps happen that the above details on the animals 

 of Trinidad will be deemed by some tedious and of no practical 



