ANIMAL KINGDOM. 143 



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 fumiga- 

 tion 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 founda- 

 tion ; 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. 



Annulida. A species of leech has been found here in ponds 

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

 resemblance to the horse-leech. 



Testaceae. It will only be necessary to mention those which 

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

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

 called here Talourdes, 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 talourdes or 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 

 univalve conchiferaa. 



It may perhaps happen that the above details on the animals 

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

 use, whilst others will undoubtedly consider them as insignificant, 

 and of no scientific value. To the former I answer, that such details 

 must tend to rouse curiosity in the minds of those who may read 

 this sketch. The latter I refer to the Appendix, where they will 

 find a more extended notice of the grand class of Vertebrata. 



