FIG-TREES. 
191 
don, not bigger than his hand ; it hutted at his hand, 
and pertinaciously refused to be driven away. In the 
case of our Jamaican species, it might, perhaps, be 
presumed that the fish was collecting some object or 
other, animal or vegetable, desirable to it, in these 
repeated strokes ; but what could the naked hand of 
the worthy naturalist yield in the way of food ? We 
must be content to reckon the action among the 
thousands which we observe in animals, to which 
our habits, instincts, and reason, afford us no clue 
whatever. 
FIG-TREES. 
One end of the old building formerly used as a 
boiling house at Bluefields is covered with the roots 
of a large Fig-tree. Its great limbs stretch out 
horizontally to an enormous length, and cover a vast 
space of ground with the deep shadow of their dense 
foliage. Its height is not at all proportioned to its 
expansion, yet the dark-green hue and shining surface 
of its large oval leaves, and its immense spreading 
boughs set with clumps of Tillandsice, give it a very 
noble appearance. The constant shadow cast beneath 
it imparts a deep gloom to the spot, and invests the 
vegetation there with a rank luxuriance of character 
that reminds one of the glades in the mountain forests 
rather than the sunny pastures of the lowlands. But 
it is of the roots that I would especially speak, for 
these form quite a curious spectacle. They spread 
over the wall in every direction from the roof down- 
wards to the earth, all in the same plane, clinging to 
the wall ; the chief roots are as thick as a man’s leg. 
