196 CRUISE OF THE BARRERA 



bird a strikingly brilliant appearance. The trogon 

 is inclined to conceal his beauty in thickets and 

 rarely displays himself in the open. His call 

 suggests that of our northern cuckoos. 



The Patron, with his ancient muzzle loader, 

 brought down from a lofty limb a large hutia — 

 the poor wounded beast struggling to maintain 

 its weakening hold upon the high perch and seek- 

 ing to wipe away the pain in its side where a shot 

 had entered. With a look down, as if to measure 

 the distance of the fall, the wretched creature 

 toppled over and fell crashing into the jungle 

 below, to gasp out its life in the branches of a 

 small tree. When finally recovered it proved to 

 be a female with j^oung, and a feeling of revul- 

 sion swept over us, including the Patron himself, 

 who had committed the murder. We could not 

 stifle the thought of the little ones that, awaiting 

 in vain their mother's return, would finally perish, 

 miserably beset with the forest scavengers before 

 they fully starved. What a thoughtlessly cruel 

 sport is hunting ! 



The Antilles are singularly poor in indigenous 

 mammals. In Cuba there are three hutias and 

 the peculiar ant-eater, Solenodon, which repre- 



