EE VIEWS. 
379 
of the cocoa-tree.” Graceful in form, and fertile in valuable and useful 
products, many species may yet be considered to possess virtues which, at 
present undeveloped, may be destined to hold important rank in the future 
commercial annals of the world. 
To the exuberant fertility of this zone we are also indebted for abundant 
vegetable nutritive products, — rice, maize, arrowroot, sugar, coffee, cocoa, 
&c. ; important spices, as nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and ginger; 
dyes, as indigo and dyewoods ; manufactures, as cotton, caoutchouc, and 
gutta percha — all indispensable adjuncts to civilization, all demanding the 
heat and the light which the tropics alone can afford, and all finding a 
place in the volume before us. 
But the tropics, rich and fertile as they are, attractive enough to cause 
a mutiny of the “ Bounty,” are not without their drawbacks, and the 
worst of these are, perhaps, to be found in the insect world. Mosquitoes 
in clouds, protected by their numbers and their minuteness, “ murder 
sleep.” Chegoes, or jiggers, insinuate their nests into the feet and toes, 
and, if allowed to remain, cause their victims to be “ lamed for life, and 
become loathsome to the sight blood-sucking ticks and bete-rouges pro- 
duce painful sores on the undefended parts of man ; while the tzsetse-fly, 
or zimb, is the scourge of cattle, so terrible and so fatal, that “ had any 
one of our indigenous flies similar poisonous qualities, we should never 
have been able to escape from barbarism.” Locusts and cockroaches are 
ever ready to devour everything, and are, in their way, no less important 
plagues. Against these we may place the silkworm and cochineal insects 
as absolutely invaluable, and a host of others are at once harmless to man 
and marvellous in their form, size, or habits. Gigantic beetles, the ele- 
phant, typhon, hector, and goliath, fighting mantises, leaf and walking- 
stick insects — those singular freaks of Nature, bright lantern-flies, and 
luminous beetles are among these. Ants and termites as wonderful as our 
own bees, if not more so, from their wondrous societies, unweai-ied in- 
dustry, and astonishing intelligence, are inexhaustible sources of interest ; 
and though some are formidably ai-med and dangei-ous neighbours, they 
are not without their uses. The ranger-ants of West Indies sting cruelly, 
but their appearance is the death-warrant for every spider, scorpion, cock- 
roach, or reptile that pollutes the dwelling. 
The dangers arising from the bite of venomous serpents appear not to be 
so great as is genei’ally imagined. Sir E. Tennent frequently performed 
journeys of two to five hundred miles through the jungle in Ceylon with- 
out seeing a single snake. They are easily alarmed, and hastily retreat, 
and only when suddenly surprised do they wound, and then in self-defence. 
Add to this, that but a small minority of snakes are poisonous, twenty-one 
out of ninety-one in tropical America, seven out of forty- three in India, 
and four out of twenty in Ceylon, and it is evident that the terrors of the 
serpent kind are usually somewhat exaggerated. Still the cobra, the 
bushmaster, and the rattlesnake are sufficient to strike terror into the 
boldest heart, and for these the whole race must be proscribed. 
We must pass over the wonders of tropical bird -life, the painted toucans, 
the gemmed humnxing-hirds, the military-looking flamingoes, the grotesque 
hornbills, the golden honey-eaters, the great soaring condors, and the 
