CHAPTER III 



THE NATURALISTS OF BARTICA DISTRICT 



The pait wliicli 15artica district has played in science 

 is of considci'able interest. Plumboldt, Walhice and Bates 

 left Guiana unexplored. Waterton's researches were con- 

 fined to the lower Denierara liiver. As early as 1776 seri- 

 ous books on the natural history of British Guiana began 

 to a])pear, but like Bancroft's "P^ssay" these are of only 

 casual interest, although their accounts of "torporific eels" 

 and "woods masters" make delightful reading. 



On September 25, 18.3o, Robert Schomburgk arrived 

 at Essequibo Point, later to be called His Majesty's Penal 

 Settlement, and spent about ten days collecting botanical 

 specimens, and preparing for his long expedition up coinitry. 

 During the next decade both he and his brother touched 

 occasionally at Bartica. Richard Schomburgk in the first 

 volume of his "Reisen in Britisch-Guiana" tells of a short 

 sojourn at Bartika-Grove in 1841, and of the capture of 

 a sloth with its young on the neighboring island of Xaiku- 

 ripa or Keow Island as it is now called. Xineteen months 

 later he returned to Bartika, where he captured a beautiful 

 green whip snake Dr if aphis catcshi/i, and noted that the 

 Penal Settlement had been established. 



In volume III of this same work, Schomburgk gives 

 a list of Mihroslcopisches Lehen as found at Bartica in suc- 

 cessive layers of soil uncovered in a seven-foot hole. ' The 

 remaining groups which he treats in these volumes, mol- 

 lusca, insects, birds, mammals and plants, are identified only 

 with general regions or physical zones, and with no more 



* These arc Pohipastrira — GalUonella clisfans 



Phi/tdlilJinrid .Irnphidi.irus roteUn 



Lilhaxtcrinrus tiiherciilnliis Sijoiniolilliis jistiilosa 



Litho.it t/rKl!itm clnvatvm Spo?i(/olifhis foram in osa 



LithoKl iilUJlnm cycriiilal nm Spnnf/olifhi.f ftisti.t 



tipon (join his acicnJari.t Spoiufolilhin obliisii 



