A DAY IN THE DEEP WOODS. I4I 



the precipitous sides of one of the two peaks which 

 form the double summit of Morne Diablotin. We 

 were now in the region especially appropriated as 

 his home by the Diablotin, or "Little Devil;" and 

 anxiously we searched, as we scrambled over the loose 



J * 



rock, for some trace of the hole in which he lived. 



Wherever I had been in the island I had heard of 

 the diablotin, and my curiosity was excited to such 

 a degree that I determined to clear away the mystery 

 which surrounded it. For thirty years it had remained 

 unseen. Many treated as a myth this story of a bird 

 living in the mountains (for it is a bird) so long a 

 period without appearing to human vision. But suffi- 

 cient proof existed, in my opinion, to warrant a search 

 for it. The older people of the island had distinct re- 

 membrances of seeing it, and attributed its disappear- 

 ance to the depredations of the " manacou," a marsu- 

 pial animal like an opossum, which hunted it from its 

 holes and devoured it and its eggs. No two persons 

 agreed as to its color, shape, or size ; but I had seen 

 in an old French work, written by a Catholic mission- 

 ary to these islands some two centuries ago, the 

 Pere Labat a good description of the bird. This 

 description, doubtless translated bodily, I also found 

 in an old history of Dominica, published in 1791. It 

 says: "The diablotin, so called by 'the French from 

 its uncommonly ugly appearance, is nearly the size 

 of a duck, and is web-footed. It has a big, round 

 head, crooked bill like a hawk, and large, full eyes 

 like an owl. Its head, part of the neck, chief feath- 

 ers of the wings and tail, are black; the other parts 

 of its body are covered with a fine, milk-white down. 

 They feed on fish, flying in great flocks to the sea- 



