BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. ‘54 
rough, slippery work it was, with many watery 
escapades and some falls — waterfalls. Through 
dense groups of callas, and other water plants, we 
were obliged to force our way. At a jam of trees 
which I was painfully climbing, I saw a humming- 
bird poised above a flower. I had been sufficiently 
long in these mountains, I thought, to procure every 
species; but this was different from any I had shot, 
and consequently he was at once added to my other 
victims, and was picked up below by one of my guides, 
as he floated like a golden leaf upon the stream. It 
proved to be a rare species, found heretofore only at 
the mouth of the Amazon, and rare even there; (the 
Thalurania wagler?) ; and it now rests in Washing- 
ton, one of the many types of West Indian birds I had 
the pleasure of sending to our National Museum. 
Leaving the stream, we climbed another steep hill- 
side, and traveled along a ridge, on either side of 
which are valleys leading to the seaand ocean. Per- 
drix and grives, or thrushes, started up at intervals. 
The “ siffeur montagne” (the “mountain whistler ”) 
sent up liquid melody from every ravine; warblers 
were few, and humming-birds the only ones abundant. 
These, and even insects, grew rare and finally ceased 
entirely as the lake valley was reached, and the sul- 
phur fumes, ever increasing in volume, were borne to 
us in dense clouds. We made a detour and again 
took the stream, now lessened to a trickling run, where 
everything was decaying, reeking with moisture, and 
slippery with confervoid growth. No snakes appeared 
now, not even a lizard; animal life was absent in this 
approach to the infernal regions. The trail was bar- 
ricaded by fallen trees, detached rocks, tangled lia- 
