SEPTEMBER 1, 1899. ] 
largest crab seen in some months’ residence 
was a brilliantly colored pink and black 
one which belonged exclusively in the man- 
gran swamps. Its very bright, clean color- 
ing, its commonness there and its move- 
ments, characterized by a certain shifty 
handiness, make it a very striking object. 
The greatest attraction of Puerto Rico 
for its tropical position is its relative free- 
dom from insects, especially the noxious 
and troublesome ones. The scorpion and 
centipede are so rare that they are very 
seldom spoken of by the natives, and the 
so-called tarantula is only an overgrown 
spider, so far as learned not so large as that 
of New Mexico. The cockroach is common 
enough and sometimes reaches an enormous 
size before his fate overtakes him. Mos- 
quitoes are generally not troublesome- 
Doubtless there are spots and seasons for 
an abundance of them, but these are not 
easy tofind. The easterly breeze so common 
over the island and usually felt from after- 
noon to morning keeps these insects down. 
The malignant germs of disease are not 
so much at home in Puerto Rico as in most 
other parts of the shores of the Caribbean: 
They can be introduced there and under 
favorable circumstances may have a con- 
siderable run—mueh as they would on the 
Gulf Coast of the States. The island is 
known as the healthiest of the Antilles and 
its winter season especially is most whole- 
some and charming. 
The wild plant life has suffered equally 
with the wild fauna by the prolonged and 
all-pervading cultivation the island has re- 
ceived. Hach part of the island not abso- 
lutely uncultivatable, even steep declivities, 
has been cultivated again and again, and 
even now slopes are carefully prepared for 
crops which are steeper than anything prob- 
ably thus used in the States. They are so 
inclined that a loosened stone will roll down 
hundreds of feet and the cultivator hoes at 
nearly the level of his head. 
SCIENCE. 
287 
The wild plants have little chance except 
on lands which for various reasons may 
have been neglected. Insuch places jungle 
and woods rapidly cover up the traces of 
cultivation and a few years change a field 
into a forest. There are many places that 
look like forests that are in a high state of 
cultivation, for many of the crops of Puerto 
Rico require shade when young and wind- 
breaks when older. These crops may be 
grown in a natural forest from which all 
unnecessary trees and brush have been re- 
moved, or, more often, the man who owns 
the place makes a planted forest out of trees 
of certain species suited to protect the 
plants. Thus it happens that the isiand is 
much more generally forest-covered than its 
highly cultivated condition would indicate. 
Coffee is the crop most cultivated in this 
way. 
{he palms are few in kinds and in indi- 
viduals. The commonest are the cocoa 
and the cabbage palm. The former loves 
the salt air from the ocean, but on this in- 
sular area it can be found at the greatest 
distance from the sea, here not more than 
twenty miles or so. The palm trees fur- 
nish thatch, standards, joists and siding for 
the native huts of the country, and the cab- 
bage at the apex of the cabbage palm is 
used for food, though each cabbage costs a 
palm tree. 
There are besides some scores of useful 
timber trees in the island, but they do not 
often occur in trunks large enough for the 
saw mill. The total number of such trees 
on the island must be considerable, but 
they are scattered, not in continuous for- 
ests, and are about as likely to be in vil- 
lages as in the country. Besides, the wood 
is often too hard and the trunk too irregu- 
lar and unsymmetrical for convenient use 
in the mill. The virgin forests are very 
few, perhaps none strictly virgin. There 
are in the mountains some areas that have 
the appearance of virgin forests, but they do 
