Impressions of a Nature-Lover in Porto Rico 



E. Eugene Barker 

 Insular Experiment Station, Rio Piedras, Porto Rico. 



The writer once heard of a party of tourists whose sole interest 

 in travelling seemed to be in arriving at a hotel where they could 

 try new dishes. The nature-lover need not be a gourmet to enjoy 

 tasting new dishes, for the satisfaction of his gustatory taste will 

 be secondary to his interest in the novel foodstuffs themselves. 

 But his chief delight as a traveller, wherever he goes, is in finding 

 old animal or plant friends or meeting their relatives, and in making 

 entirely new acquaintances. His pleasure, then, will be in pro- 

 portion to his past acquaintance, to his temperamental capacity 

 and his opportunities. 



Now, a stranger coming to Porto Rico for the first time will be 

 overjoyed in many instances but disappointed in others. Nature 

 lavished her gifts abundantly upon this island, but remember 

 man has lived on it for over four centuries, and as elsewhere, his 

 presence has made many alterations. A friend of mine, coming 

 here, anticipated that he could explore tropical jungles. He was 

 disappointed when he found the Island to be as thickly populated 

 as any of our New England States, — somewhat over 300 persons 

 to the square mile, — and the forests had been almost entirely 

 destroyed. Only a very little timber remains and that is pre- 

 served in a government reserve in the highest mountains. The 

 watersheds have been denuded and fuel is very scarce. Wood is 

 all burned in the form of charcoal and the average of less than a 

 half cord is the amount consumed per person a year. The heavy 

 rainfall quickly runs off from the steep surfaces gorging the stream 

 channels for a few hours, and were it not that the soil is a very 

 tenacious clay, it seems the hills would long since have been re- 

 duced to level plains. Here, surely, is an object lesson and a 

 warning to Americans to practice forest conservation at home 

 before it is too late to save our forests. 



With the passing of the forest shelters and the increase of the 

 population, doubtless, the wild life has greatly decreased. There 

 are no large mammals and the mongoose, an introduced animal, is 

 said to be responsible for the small numbers of smaller mammals, 

 ground birds and reptiles. The native crow, unlike our own, fails 

 to hold his own against civilization and settlement, and he exists 



10 



