1 12 Mr. P. H. Gosse on the Insects of Jamaica. 



cotton-tree {Eriodendron), reaches not to these elevated regions, 

 but its place is supplied by scarcely less bulky fig-trees, whose 

 hoary trunks and broad horizontal limbs are a perfect nursery of 

 OrchidacecB and Bromeliacece ; and magnificent Santa Marias ( Cc:- 

 lophyllum), broad-leafs (yermmfl/m ?), and parrot-berries (/S/o«7iefl) 

 tower up to an enormous pre-eminence above their fellows. 

 Dense thickets of joint-wood [Piper geniculatum ?) grow in 

 large patches to the exclusion of every thing else : in other 

 places the trees are tall, slender, and somewhat open in growth ; 

 but the edge of the woods is formidable with cutting sedges 

 and spinous Solanacece, relieved by beautiful tufts of Cannce. The 

 mountain cabbage and the long- thatch are the prevalent forms 

 of Palmce; tree-ferns are abundant, and caulescent species of 

 great beauty climb to the summits of tall trees } while in the 

 damp and dark hollows, and by the sides of the winding paths 

 which lead to the negroes^ grounds, terrestrial ferns of many 

 species grow in luxuriant profusion. Such a scene, beautiful as 

 it is, is not favourable to the development of insect existence ; 

 a few species occur there which are not elsewhere met with ; but 

 it is at a rather lower range, at the brow of the mountain, that I 

 have found more success in entomologizing. A property of con- 

 siderable extent is here partially reclaimed, and devoted to the 

 growth of the pimento and coffee; and though its back is 

 bounded by the dark and tangled forest-peaks I have alluded to, 

 its area displays a very different aspect. Five hundred feet of 

 elevation produce some difference in vegetation, and probably 

 the openness of the cleared ground still more. The bamboo, 

 planted along the sides of the shelving road, throws its gigantic 

 plumes overhead ; the mahoe {Hibiscus) displays its large and 

 showy flowers ; the scarlet blossoms of Malaviscus arhoreus and 

 the crimsoned ones of some species of MelastomacecBy beautify the 

 edge of the forest, and large beds of Urena lobata border the 

 road. In such parts as have been cultivated for a few years, 

 and then (according to the custom of West Indian agriculture) 

 allowed to run to waste, bushes of numberless kinds have sprung 

 up, many of which are in blossom at all seasons. Though the 

 flowers of most of these are individually small and inconspicuous, 

 yet from their profusion they present an attraction to Hymenopte- 

 rous and Lepidopterous insects ; and such a wilderness of vege- 

 tation is usually more or less productive to the entomologist. 

 In this particular locality I have usually found butterflies pretty 

 numerous, principally Nymphalidce and HesperiadcB, and those of 

 sorts rarely found in the lowlands ; but from the tangled cha- 

 racter of the "bush,^^ and from the height of the blossomed 

 summits about which they hover, they are less readily obtained 

 than observed. It is to this scene that I shall allude when I 



