SANTA CLARA 269 



repeated air had a refrain of which the intelligible words 

 were "Sally Maun day." I saw many other Jamaican 

 negroes during this week for they do nearly all the work in 

 the hot banana fields. They speak English, nominally, but 

 it was often difficult to understand them and apparently 

 for them to understand us. 



Opposite the cabin where I sat was a tall tree whose 

 trunk rose straight from the ground without a branch for 

 about fifty feet; then its branches spread rather widely with 

 not very thick foliage and with long depending wisps of 

 Tillandsia. Attached to many of the branches were the 

 hanging nests of the lowland oropendolas. Each nest looked 

 to be one and a half to two feet long, thickening somewhat 

 from top to bottom and with an opening on the side. I 

 counted fifty-four such nests on this one tree. The birds 

 made frequent visits to the nests; their flight was strong 

 and their call a long and somewhat calliope-like whistle. 



By and by the rain stopped and I walked a little in the 

 neighborhood of the junction though I dared not go far 

 since the train was already overdue. A banana plantation 

 came down to the tracks on the southern side and a little 

 pool lay near it. As I approached, two green lizards, each 

 a foot long, left the water's edge and darted into the bananas. 

 Following them, I saw on a tree (forming part of the fence 

 around the bananas) at about two feet from the ground, 

 one of those tree nests of termites or so-called "white ants," 

 well-known in the lower parts of tropical America. This 

 nest was about the size of a man's head, brownish and made 

 as usual of the wood which has been chewed by the termites 

 and so worked into building material. Breaking a small 

 hole into it, the termites could be seen running about actively 

 within. The sound of a locomotive broke off" my observa- 

 tions and I returned to the platform. It proved a false alarm 

 and by five o'clock (the scheduled time for arrival at Gua- 



