120 
BLUEFIELDS. 
Yellow-bellied Parroquet chooses 
to build her nest in them, excavating a chamber 
with her pow^erful beak. Snakes and their eggs are 
often found in them, and the eggs of Lizards also. 
I once found in one several eggs of the small 
Pallette-tip Gecko {Sphceriodactylus argus). It is 
now an excellent fuel, burning readily, with a flame 
and a glowing brightness, little inferior to coal. As 
no ammoniacal smell proceeds from it, and as it con- 
sumes into a clear white ash, I conjecture that the 
substance is of vegetable origin. It is sought after, 
in those districts and seasons in which the Musqui- 
toes make a more than endurable pest, in order to be 
burned in a chafing-dish ; as it gives out a good deal 
of smoke, which is the only weapon that those 
formidable, though minute, warriors fear. The 
smoke clears the house of the insect-hosts in a few 
seconds ; and is much preferable to that of wood, 
because far less painful to the eyes. 
The Termites do not often enter dwelling-houses ; 
but sometimes they do penetrate the floors, and 
devour whatever lies in their way, encrusting the 
residue with their galleries, which they invariably 
make as they go along. Some spare bedding that 
had lain in one corner of my bed-room for some 
weeks, tied up in a blanket, I found, on removing 
it, much injured in this way; the blanket being 
devoured in long meandering lines, and so defiled 
with the crustaceous deposit as to be irreparably 
spoiled. 
In the spring a swarm of the winged males and 
females often enters the house, to the great annoy- 
