112 
Mr. P. H. Gosse on the Insects of Jamaica. 
cotton-tree [Eriodendron), reaches not to these elevated regions, 
but its place is supplied by scarcely less bulky fig-trees, whose 
hoary trunks and broad horizontal limbs are a perfect nursery of 
Orchidacece diXidi Bromeliacece and magnificent Santa Marias (Cc:- 
lophyllum), broad-leafs ( ?), and parrot-berries (>S'/o«?2e«) 
tower up to an enormous pre-eminence above their fellows. 
Dense thickets of joint-wood (Piper geniculatum ?) grow in 
large patches to the exclusion of every thing else : in other 
places the trees are tall, slender, and somewhat open in growth ; 
but the edge of the woods is formidable with cutting sedges 
and spinous Solanacece, relieved by beautiful tufts of Cannm. The 
mountain cabbage and the long- thatch are the prevalent forms 
of Palmcc) tree-ferns are abundant, and caulescent species of 
great beauty climb to the summits of tall trees 3 while in the 
damp and dark hollows, and by the sides of the winding paths 
which lead to the negroes^ grounds, terrestrial ferns of many 
species grow in luxuriant profusion. Such a scene, beautiful as 
it is, is not favourable to the development of insect existence ; 
a few species occur there which are not elsewhere met with ; but 
it is at a rather lower range, at the brow of the mountain, that I 
have found more success in entomologizing. A property of con- 
siderable extent is here partially reclaimed, and devoted to the 
growth of the pimento and coffee; and though its back is 
bounded by the dark and tangled forest-peaks I have alluded to, 
its area displays a very different aspect. Five hundred feet of 
elevation produce some difference in vegetation, and probably 
the openness of the cleared ground still more. The bamboo, 
planted along the sides of the shelving road, throws its gigantic 
plumes overhead ; the mahoe (Hibiscus) displays its large and 
showy flowers ; the scarlet blossoms of Malaviscus arhoreus and 
the crimsoned ones of some species of Melastomacece, beautify the 
edge of the forest, and large beds of Urena lobata border the 
road. In such parts as have been cultivated for a few years, 
and then (according to the custom of West Indian agriculture) 
allowed to run to waste, bushes of numberless kinds have sprung 
up, many of which are in blossom at all seasons. Though the 
flowers of most of these are individually small and inconspicuous, 
yet from their profusion they present an attraction to Hymenopte- 
rous and Lepidopterous insects ; and such a wilderness of vege- 
tation is usually more or less productive to the entomologist. 
In this particular locality I have usually found butterflies pretty 
numerous, principally ISkymplialidce and Hesperiadce, and those of 
sorts rarely found in the lowlands ; but from the tangled cha- 
racter of the “ bush,^^ and from the height of the blossomed 
summits about which they hover, they are less readily obtained 
than observed. It is to this scene that I shall allude when I 
