30 ALLIGATOR POND. 



cup, and crowded with wasps ; others old and aban- 

 doned. There must have been m that hut some 

 hundreds of nests. Wasps of the same species were 

 swarming about the spinous leaves of the Pinguin, 

 a sort of wild pine-apple, of which fences are made. 

 The road soon became interesting, being bounded by 

 huge masses of white, limestone singularly honey- 

 combed with round holes of various sizes.* In these 

 holes often were seen small shells, perfectly white 

 like the stone itself, of the genera Helix, Cyclostoma, 

 Cylindrella, See. ; and many were scattered about, 

 some whole, and some in fragments. In many cases 

 the shell accurately fitted the hole, and the stone 

 bore evident marks of having been in a plastic con- 

 dition when the shells were enveloped in it. I at 

 first supposed that they were fossil, but I have since 

 found that they are the common living species of the 

 woods. This fact is interesting, as it seems *.o j)rove 

 the comparatively recent formation of this honey- 

 combed limestone, which forms so large a proportion 

 of the rock in the central part of the island. Out 

 of the hollows of the rock on either hand, their roots 

 fast grasping the projections and twining round the 

 sharp points between the holes, grew many tall trees 

 of various kinds, interlaced with climbers, and hung 

 with festoons of lianes, resemblinaf lono- and twisted 



* The appearance of this limestone is very singular. Sir IL De la 

 Beche accounts for its structure, by suggesting that it is not homo- 

 geneous in substance ; that some parts were originally more argilla- 

 ceous than others ; and that these becoming decomposed by the action 

 of the atmosphere, left irregular cavities in the harder and more 

 .durable stone. 



