292 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
in a dark crevice or under a drooping leaf. They 
like to conceal themselves beneath the leaves of such 
plants as the aloes, where one broad leaf underlaps 
the other, and where they can rest almost unseen. You 
see it also on the walks, its hairy legs outstretched, 
its ugly body flat to the earth, resembling a bunch of 
catkins from the trumpet-tree, which everywhere lie 
scattered about. Poke it with a stick, and, instead 
of trying to escape, it will climb up that stick so vig- 
orously toward your hand, that, ten to one, you will 
drop it and run. ‘Turn it over, and it discloses a pair 
of sharp, beak-like jaws, red within, which, with its 
gleaming eyes, have a cruel appearance. With its 
legs spread, this spider will sometimes cover the area 
of a saucer. 
Centipedes and scorpions, also, abound here. In- 
deed, it seems that nature has bestowed upon this 
island of Martinique all the pests and scourges 
known to these islands; for only here and in the 
adjacent island of St. Lucia is found that most ven- 
omous and vengeful of all serpents, the Lance-head 
snake —Craspedocephalus lanceolatus. The isolation 
of this snake in these two islands, when its nearest 
habitat is Guiana, is one of the most vexing stumbling- 
blocks to one studying the distribution of animals. 
How came it here? Was it introduced, or is it in- 
digenous? Was it wafted here upon some floating 
tree, or was its home here from the beginning? The 
correct solution of this problem would, doubtless, throw 
some light upon that more important and gigantic one, 
Were these islands once a part of the continents? Cer- 
tain it is, the adjacent islands of Dominica and St. 
Vincent, separated from these by channels less than 
