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BLUEFIELDS. 
an examination of the flowers, which were stami- 
niferous only. 
BEAUTIFUL COCOON. 
Aug. Wth , — A friend sent me an insect production 
of great beauty. It consists of an immense number 
of cocoons of a small hymenopterous fly, set close to 
each other in exact order, the whole arranged around 
an axis, which in this case was the stalk of a Coco- 
leaf {Colocasia). The material is a downy silk of the 
purest white, and the congeries appears like an egg- 
shaped mass of the flnest cotton-wool, 
I afterwards obtained another specimen, precisely 
similar, from the twig of a Cotton-tree, at the 
Vineyard, near Black River. 
THE BLACK SNAKE. 
The most common Ophidian reptile in Jamaica 
is the Black Snake.* It is frequently met with in 
* This has sometimes been confounded with the Black Snake 
{Coluber constrictor, Linn.) of the United States, but it is manifestly 
a very distinct species. It may be thus described : — 
Natrix atra, mihi. Scales hexagonal, or sub-rhomboidal on the 
bQdy, becoming broader on the tail, imbricate, smooth, convex. Tail 
one-third of the total length. The gape reaches to the middle of the 
occipital plates, but the rictal furrow extends beyond their lips. Gape 
nearly straight, slightly arching downwards, and rising behind. A 
row of fine teeth in each jaw, and one in each palatal, pointing back- 
wards. Labial plates eight, of which the third, fourth, and fifth form 
the lower part of the orbit : they increase in size from the front to 
the sixth, and then diminish. Vertical plate long-pentagonal, straight 
in front, nearly rectangular behind. Superior orbitals large, projecting. 
Occipitals large, sub-pentagonal, their interior-front sides very short, 
posterior ends rounded. Rostral nearly erect, semilunar, with the 
