CHAPTER VIII. 



Absence of Wild Animals upon Coral Islands. Pleasures af the Chase 

 Unknown. Diet of the Aborigines. How Alligators Taste. The Guanas as 

 a Table Luxury. They are Intoxicated with Whistling Music. Vassar Girls 

 Charming Turtles. Mountain Crabs. The Hermit Crab a Freebooter. The 

 Lizards — Changing their Color and Hunting Game. Animals upon the West 

 India Iskuids when Discovered. Snakes. Sea Turtles. Turtle Shell. How 

 Sponges Grow and form Communistic Communities. The Sponge FisJieries. 

 Value and Quantity of Bahama Sponges Exported. 



"The world was made to be Inhabited by beasts, but studied and 

 contemplated by man." — Thomas Brown.- 



But \x])o\\ the Bahamas man finds few animals to study and 

 contemphite. At the time of their discovery by Columbus in 

 1492, they were destitute of all the higher forms of animal life. 

 The Bahamas belong to a recent geological age, and are some of 

 the ornamental ajipendages Avith which the earth was decorated, 

 thousands, and perhaps millions of years after it was made, and 

 wliile, with its little partner, the moon, it was, as now, waltzing 

 around the sun. This, in connection with the fact of their small 

 extent and isolated position, accounts for that absence of animal 

 life to which we have referred. Some domesticated animals — 

 the cow, the horse, the hog and the sheep — are now found upon 

 the islands, but they are a part of the old world's gift to the new. 

 That pet of many a household — man's friend, companion, guard 

 and protector — the much alnised dog — is not only frequently met 

 with upon the islands, but it is reported that a native breed once 

 existed that never barked. While we are unable to vouch for 



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