riG-TKEES. 191 



don, not bigger than his hand ; it butted at his hand, 

 and pertinaciously refused to be driven away. In the 

 case of our Jamaican species, it might, perhaps, be 

 presumed that the fish was collecting some object or 

 other, animal or vegetable, desirable to it, in these 

 repeated strokes ; but what could the naked hand of 

 the worthy naturalist yield in the way of food ? We 

 must be content to reckon the action among the 

 thousands which we observe in animals, to which 

 our habits, instincts, and reason, afford us no clue 

 whatever. 



FIG-TREES. 



One end of the old building formerly used as a 

 boiling house at Bluefields is covered with the roots 

 of a large Fig-tree. Its great limbs stretch out 

 horizontally to an enormous length, and cover a vast 

 space of ground with the deep shadow of their dense 

 foliage. Its height is not at all proportioned to its 

 expansion, yet the dark-green hue and shining surface 

 of its large oval leaves, and its immense spreading 

 boughs set with clumps of Tillandsice, give it a very 

 noble appearance. The constant shadow cast beneath 

 it imparts a deep gloom to the spot, and invests the 

 vegetation there with a rank luxuriance of character 

 that reminds one of the glades in the mountain forests 

 rather than the sunny pastures of the lowlands. But 

 it is of the roots that I would especially speak, for 

 these form quite a curious spectacle. They spread 

 over the wall in every direction from the roof down- 

 wards to the earth, all in the same plane, clinging to 

 the wall ; the chief roots are as thick as a man's leg, 



