298 TlMEHRI. 
thick, free of branches, as shown, and with a handsome spreading, hive- 
shaped head of dense dark green foliage. This is a young tree. In its 
native forests it grows to a much greater size. Couroupita guianensis 
inhabits the wide-stretching alluvial land skirting the rivers of British 
Guiana, where it is plentiful, attaining a height of 80 to 100 feet or 
more. It is of fine growth, and quickly forms a fine feature as a speci- 
men plant in a tropical garden. It suddenly drops its leaves in March, 
and in a few days is again clothed in fully developed foliage of the 
richest green. The flowers are large, freely produced, curious in form, 
pink in colour, and highly scented. The solid rusty-coated fruits are 
about 6 inches in diameter, and contain a quantity of flat circular seeds, 
rather larger than a sixpence, embedded in their pulp. The tree belongs 
to the Lecythis family, and it is stated that the hard shells of the fruit are 
used as drinking vessels. 
We may add that Dr. SCHOMBURGK certainly says, 
that " it is distributed throughout the (forest) region and 
flowers almost throughout the year*," but that subse- 
quent travellers have never recorded the occurrence of 
this very peculiar and striking tree, and that we ourselves, 
during somewhat extensive travels, have never seen it in 
British Guiana. 
The Di-Di or Water-mamma. Among the beings 
which play a part in Indian folk-lore none is more pro- 
minent than the di-di ; and the belief in these beings, 
under the name of water-mamma, is shared by, perhaps has 
been acquired from, the negroes. Very various accounts 
are given by different individuals of the bodily form of 
these beings. The belief has some literary interest owing 
to the fact that it was almost certainly some di-di story 
which put it into the head of that quaint thinker and pleas 
ant writer CHARLES WATERTON to make his celebrated 
" nondescript," by uniting various parts of various animals 
* Ueisen in Britisch Guiana, vol. iii. p. 1021. 
