302 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



on the east side wet weather may be said to last throughout the year. The annual 

 rainfall rises to at least 130 inches in the Reventazon and Colorado basins. 



Nevertheless the Costa Rican climate is one of the most salubrious in Central 

 America, both for natives and foreign settlers. Consumption is ver}^ rare, though 

 the uplands have at times been ravaged by chojera, smallpox, and other epidemics. 

 Fevers also prevail in the low-lying coast districts, while on the plateau strangers 

 are subject to rheumatism from the excessive moisture. 



In general the flora resembles that of the other Central American regions, 

 though botanists have been struck by the contrasts often presented between the 

 Nicaraguan depressions and the Costa Rica uplands. Thus of the 100 ferns 

 collected by Levy in Nicaragua, only three or four are found in the 36 Costa Rican 

 varieties in Polakowsky's collection. The cactuses, also, which in many parts of 

 the Mexican plateau caver vast spaces, are scarcely represented at all on the San 

 José uplands. In the forests occur numerous Colombian forms, especially several 

 false cinchonas, which might easily be replaced by the valuable medicinal species. 

 Tree-ferns grow to an altitude of nearly 7,000 feet, and the banana to about 

 6,000 



Notwithstanding the reckless destruction of timber in many districts, more 

 than half of the Atlantic slopes are still covered with primeval forests, containing 

 an amazing variety of forms. In a space of 100 square yards, more types are here 

 met than in 100 square miles in north Canada. The streams flow beneath avenues 

 of overhanging foliage bound together from bank to bank by wreaths of flowers 

 and festoons of trailing plants. A characteristic form in the clumps of trees dotted 

 over many of the savannas is a species of mimosa, from which the province of 

 Guanacaste takes its name. The widespreading branches of this tree are a favourite 

 resort of the monkey tribe. According to Pittier the Costa Rican flora comprises 

 altogether at least 2,200 species. 



The fauna, also, is exceptionally rich compared with that of other tropical regions. 

 In general Brazilian and other southern types prevail over those of the northern 

 continent. But Costa Rica also possesses several indigenous species, such as a 

 howling monkey distinct from that of Guiana, a tapir {elasmognathus), somewhat 

 different from the Colombian species, besides several kinds of bats and vampires 

 dangerous to cattle, whose blood they suck. One migrating species appears sud- 

 denly on the plains of Pirris, south of Mount Herradura, and falls on the domestic 

 animals, poultry, cats, dogs, as well as horses and oxen. Although often regarded 

 as fables, the reports of vampires sucking the blood of human beings, lulling their 

 victims with their long wings, are by no means questioned by travellers and 

 naturalists who have visited Central America. Whole villages have had to be 

 abandoned to escape their attacks, and the engineer. Brooks, one of the surveyors 

 of the Panama Canal, died from the bites of a vampire. 



But the Costa Rican fauna reveals its marvellous wealth especially in the 

 feathered tribe. In 1885, the catalogue of the Washington National Museum 

 already enumerated 692 species, distributed in 394 genera, and two years later, six 

 new species were discovered, altogether twice the number possessed by the whole 



