188 



THE CAYO BONITO. 



than the bants. On a layer of sand and land shells, five to 

 six inches thick, covered by a fragmentary madreporic rock, 

 rises a forest of mangroves (Rhizophora). From their form 

 and foliage, they might at a distance be mistaken for laurel 

 trees. The Avicennia, the Batis, some small Euphorbia, and 

 grasses, by the intertwining of their roots, fix the moving 

 sands. But the characteristic distinction of the Flora of 

 these coral islands, is the magnificent Tournefortia gnapha- 

 lioides of Jacquin, with silvered leaves, which we found here 

 for the first time. This is a social plant, and is a shrub from 

 four feet and a half to five feet high. Its flowers emit an 

 agreeable perfume ; and it is the ornament of Cayo Flamenco, 

 Cayo Piedras, and perhaps of the greater part of the low 

 lands of the Jardinillos. While we were employed in 

 herborizing, our sailors were searching among the rocks 

 for lobsters. Disappointed at not finding them, they 

 avenged themselves by climbing on the mangroves and 

 making a dreadful slaughter of the young alcatras, grouped 

 in pairs in their nests. This name is given, in Spanish 

 America, to the brown swan-tailed pelican of Buffon. "With 

 the want of foresight peculiar to the great pelagic birds, 

 the alcatra builds his nest where several branches of trees 

 unite together. We counted four or five nests on the 

 same trunk of a mangrove. The young birds defended them- 

 selves valiantly with their enormous beaks, which are six 

 or seven inches long ; the old ones hovered over our heads, 

 making hoarse and plaintive cries. Blood streamed from 

 the tops of the trees, for the sailors were armed with great 

 sticks and cutlasses (machetes). In vain we reproved them 

 for this cruelty. Condemned to long obedience in the 

 solitude of the seas, this class of men feel pleasure in 

 exercising a cruel tyranny over animals, when occasion 



* "We gathered Cenchrus myosuro'ides, Euphorbia buxifolia, Batis 

 maritima, Iresine obtusifolia, Tournefortia gnaphalioides, Diomedea 

 glabrata, Cakile cubensis, Dolichos miniatus, Parthenium hysterophorus, 

 &c. The last-named plant, which we had previouslyfound in the valley 

 of Caracas and on the temperate table-lands of Mexico, between 470 and 

 900 toises high, covers the fields of the island of Cuba. It is used by 

 the inhabitants for aromatic baths, and to drive away the fleas which are 

 so numerous in tropical climates. At Cumana, the leaves of several species 

 of cassia are employed, on account of their smell, against those annoying 

 iaiects. 



