I70 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



some of them very beautiful in form and colouring. 

 Tiny Panama shells, larger Pompanos and the 

 heavier conch are among- the commonest, and in the 

 course of half an hour, merely while waiting for the 

 slack water, I have gathered twenty or more 

 different kinds, with the names of many of which I 

 am unacquainted. Yet my blissful ignorance of the 

 price-lists of shell-collectors at any rate leaves me 

 the solace of appreciating for their beauty many 

 that may be so common as not to merit even the 

 little trouble needed to pick them up and wash them 

 clean of sand. Of pebbles and stones of any kind, 

 on the other hand, those beaches are singularly 

 free, and you can patrol a mile of the foreshore 

 without finding more than at most half a dozen. 



Florida has the reputation of being a land of 

 reptiles. In addition to its tortoises and alligators, 

 rattlesnakes and mocassins are among the deadly 

 snakes that have their home among its swamps and 

 forests. Yet the majority of these crawling 

 creatures, venomous or otherwise, are of a secretive 

 and retiring nature, as may be inferred from the 

 indifference to their presence of the human popula- 

 tion. The carelessness of those who share a 

 country with dangerous reptiles is proverbial. I 

 have met cases of this mood in three continents, 

 and it always reminds me of the apathy with which 

 men rebuild their homes on the site of an earth- 

 quake or eruption, careless of the chance of re- 

 currence. In the case of indifference to deadly 

 snakes, the habit of the latter in shunning as much 

 as possible the neighbourhood of man is in great 

 measure answerable. A curious case ot the kind 

 came under my own notice at Useppa. 



