228 BLUEFIELDS. 



an examination of the flowers, which were stami- 

 niferous only. 



BEAUTIFUL COCOON. 



Aug. Wth. — A friend sent me an insect production 

 of great beauty. It consists of an immense number 

 of cocoons of a small hymenopterous fly, set close to 

 each other in exact order, the whole arranged around 

 an axis, which in this case was the stalk of a Coco- 

 leaf {Colocasia). The material is a downy silk of the 

 purest white, and the congeries appears like an egg- 

 shaped mass of the finest cotton-wooL 



I afterwards obtained another specimen, precisely 

 similar, from the twig of a Cotton-tree, at the 

 Vineyard, near Black River. 



THE BLACK SNAKE. 



The most common Ophidian reptile in Jamaica 

 is the Black Snake.* It is frequently met with in 



* This has sometimes been confounded with the Black Snake 

 (Coluber constrictor, Linn.) of the United States, but it is manifestly 

 a very distinct species. It may be thus described : — 



Matrix atra, mihi. Scales hexagonal, or sub-rhomboidal on the 

 body, becoming broader on the tail, imbricate, smooth, convex. Tail 

 one-third of the total length. The gape reaches to the middle of the 

 occipital plates, but the rictal furrow extends beyond their tips. Gape 

 nearly straight, slightly arching downwards, and rising behind. A 

 row of fine teeth in each jaw, and one in each palatal, pointing back- 

 wards. Labial plates eight, of which the third, fourth, and fifth form 

 the lower part of the orbit : they increase in size from the front to 

 the sixth, and then diminish. Vertical plate long-pentagonal, straight 

 in front, nearly rectangular behind. Superior orbitals large, projecting. 

 Occipitals large, sub-pentagonal, their interior-front sides very short, 

 posterior ends rounded. Rostral nearly erect, semilunar, with the 



