FAUNA OF COSTA EICA. 303 



of Europe. The parrot and gallinaceous families are both represented by an 

 extraordinary number of different forms, as well as by the multitude of individuals 

 comprised in many of the groups. 



In the reptile order, as many as 132 species have already been recorded, and 

 great discoveries still remain to be made on the marshy seaboard and in the 

 dense primeval woodlands. The surrounding marine waters also abound in animal 

 life, and the manatee, which has disappeared from most of the "West Indian coast- 

 lands, still frequents the Costa Ptican streams. Like Tehuantepec Bay, the Gulf of 

 Nicoya has its pui pie-yielding murex, and like the Gulf of California, its pearl and 

 mother of-pearl oysters. 



Ils'HABITANTS. 



In Costa Rica the aborigines have been almost entirely supplanted by a civi- 

 lised population of Spanish culture. The first European settlement, which, however, 

 was not permanent, was founded in 1524 by Hernandez de Cordova on the Gulf 

 of ]!^icoya. Badajoz, founded in 1540, on the opposite coast at the mouth of the 

 Sicsola, in the Talamanca territory, also disappeared, and in 1544 took place the 

 first conflict between the Indians of the plateau and the Spaniards in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the present Cartage. 



In 1563 began the systematic conquest of the country by Vasquez de Coronado, 

 who secured a firm footing on the plateau, where nearl}^ all the population of 

 Spanish speech is at present concentrated. Vasquez penetrated to within a short 

 distance of the Golfo Dulce, reducing the warlike Coto Indians, and afterwards 

 exploring the Talamanca territory on the eastern sloi^e, the district about Almi- 

 rante Bay, the Guaymi country and the auriferous region of the Rio de la 

 Estrella. 



At that time the aborigines must have numbered at least 60,000, the Talamancas 

 alone being estimated at 25,000, and the Indians of Coto at from 12,000 to 15,000. 

 In 1675, over 100 years after the conquest, there were still scarcely more than 

 500 Spanish settlers in the country, nearly all grouped round the two towns of 

 Cartage and Esparza on the plateau. The Indians employed on their plantations 

 were gradually reduced to a few hundreds, and the colony itself made so little 

 progress that even so late as 1718, there was not a single place of business on the 

 plateau, and all the traffic was in the hands of packmen. 



During the seventeenth century the seaboard was frequently attacked by the 

 corsairs, but the country was too poor to attract them to the plateau. Despite its 

 strategic importance Costa Rica, towards the end of the colonial régime, when it 

 formed a province of the Guatemalan viceroyalty, had only a population of 47,000, 

 mainly Mestizoes. The peo2:)le are usually spoken of as full-blood Spaniards, 

 mostly from Galicia ; bvit they are really Ladinos, assimilated to the white race 

 in speech, usages, and national sentiment. The negro element is very slight, 

 there having been only 200 blacks in the province at the time of the official 

 abolition of slavery in 1824. 



The bravos, or " wild " Indians, variously estimated at from 3,500 to 6,000, 



