200 CRUISE OF THE BARRERA 



over of specimens spread out upon the light-keeper's 

 floor. The entire population of the place gathered 

 about to witness the extraordinary scene of ap- 

 parently normal men buying with real money 

 such trash as snails and beetles. No doubt our 

 limited knowledge of the local dialect spared us 

 disparaging comments that falling short of our 

 understanding, exploded harmlessly about us. 



During our hours in the forest, Greenlaw had 

 made a number of hauls of the dredge in shoal 

 water off the cape, working as closely as possible 

 to the coral patches. He had captured some 

 exceedingly interesting echinoderms and a few 

 mollusks. 



To do any sort of justice to this region, a natur- 

 alist should remain at least a month or six weeks 

 in the rainy, and an equally long period during 

 the dry, season. In that way some definite idea 

 of the fauna and flora could be obtained and 

 valuable observations made upon the habits and 

 life histories of its commoner forms. For the 

 naturalist, the advantage of a track through the 

 forest is very great, enabhng him to conserve all 

 his energies for actual collecting work. A light 

 launch that could be beached in times of rough 



