V v ; I WJ 1/3 ,- <.>:•>., j r^ i - • i ' ,.,,... v-; '• • • •. , •' •• §1 I m |j ...'/>„• v. ;•••'•,••.'•'••'. :" ;, '• < • • • .- ','••' •' HP™ H a HO HH Ma S?? SllliSS^ •- BRffiiiiiSmRSI tMS^^i ;\'-';>:- , •,- •• • . . '., ••: *v,".;..- • '., 55 Y . ;. . • m , .,,;• fa . ^ ; '•,-.'• :'-••' m -.• ••"••' • • • ' ' >: •• . :- •''•'•:'. :: : ,''.•• ' • • ,;..;; |8 • .'/v1,;'" PS .':- •• tjw •"- •.'" • t HI " • '. :- ,-;:—-.- : . /, .' v " ' ,. m • ;V, a • •• ;. •: ! ,...; .'•''..'.: ' '•; • ' .1'''!.:, ftS '.-:'"' '' p|^ : ':"•"."':.;'':-',.••'. .: 0 ; '•; .';..:'• • • • \: •'./,'••-. '-...". >;'• ; ' . • ' ' : ' •' ' ;-. ' . . '. ,•'••'•''' ''.'''•',' '.''.:'•. • ;'.,- ;•''•'!'•" (' v .•'• "•-• "' '•'.'.• ;h\f < ,..'•''''•": ./ ' ,,•••• i^^^R®^»B.^S^^wH^Mi™^B ? v ::::'.:. •..•: : ^^^«i HiBH^^^^i^ IB1 V'--':-^.Y^\'-Y'Y^.::-V^'n:V;:,^^e:'':^^ . s M I? ./, THE NATFEALIST IN NICABAGUA: A NARRATIVE OF A RESIDENCE AT THE GOLD MINES OF CHONTALES ; JOURNEYS IN THE SAVANNAHS AND FORESTS. WITH OBSERVATIONS ON ANIMALS AND PLANTS IN REFERENCE TO THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION OF LIVING FORMS. BY THOMAS BELT, F.G.S., Al'THOR OF " MINERAL VEINS," " THE GLACIAL PERIOD IX NORTH AMERICA, ETC., ETC. " It was his faith,— perhaps is mine, — That life in all its forms is one, And that its secret conduits run Unseen, but in unbroken line, From the great fountain-head divine, Through uian and beast, through grain and grass.'' LONGFEl I.nU WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, 1874. [The right of Translation is reserved.} LONPON : BKADBVRY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, W3IITEFRIAKS. 3 TO HENRY WALTER BATES, i AYHOSE ADMIRABLE "WOKE, THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS,' HAS BEEN MY GUIDE AND MODEL, | JUbicat* tbb J}ook, AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT AND FRIENDSHIP. PREFACE. THE following pages have been written during the intervals between arduous professional engagements. Begun on the Atlantic during my voyage home from Central America, the firs.t half relieved the tedium of a long and slow recovery from the effects of an acci- dent occurring on board ship. The middle of the manuscript found me traversing the high passes of the snow-clad Caucasus, where I made acquaintance with the Abkassiaiis, in whose language Mr. Hyde Clarke finds analogies with those of my old friends the Bra- zilian Indians. I now write this brief preface and the last chapter of my book (with " Bradshaw's Conti- nental Guide" as my only book of reference), on my way across the continent to the Urals, and beyond, to the country of the nomad Kirghizes and the far Altai mountains on the borders of Thibet ; and when readers receive my work I shall probably have turned my face homewards again, and for weeks be speed- ing across the frozen Siberian steppes, wrapped in furs, listening to the sleigh bells, and wondering how my book has sped. It is full of theories — I trust not unsupported by facts : some thought out on the plains of Southern Australia ; some during many a vi PREFACE. solitary sleigh drive over frozen lakes in North Ame- rica ; some in the great forests of Central and South America ; some on the wide ocean, with the firmament above and below blending together on the horizon; and some, again, in the bowels of the earth, seeking for the mine's hidden riches. The thoughts are those of a lifetime compressed into this little book ; and, like the genii of the Arabian tale, imprisoned in an urn, they may, when it is opened, grow and magnify, or, on the contrary, be kicked back into the sea of oblivion. This much is necessary; not to disarm criticism, but to excuse myself to those authors whose labours on some of the subjects I have treated of may not have been mentioned. I have, during my various sojourns in England, worked hard to read up the literature of the various questions discussed, but I know there must be man}7 oversights and omissions in referring to what others have done ; especially with regard to continental writers, for I know no language but my mother-tongue, and their works, excepting where I have had access to translations, have been sealed books to me. I am indebted to Mr. H. W. Bates for much assist- ance, and especially for undertaking the superin- tendence of these sheets in their passage through the press ; to Mr. W. C. Hewitsoii, of Oatlands Park, I am under many obligations for taking charge of my ento- mological collections, for naming many of my butter- flies, and for access to his magnificent collection of PREFACE. vii Diurnal Lepidoptera. Mr. Osbert Salvin and Dr. P. L. Sclater have named for me mv collection of birds ; V ' and for much entomological information I am in- debted to Professor Westwood, Mr. F. Smith, and Dr. D. Sharp ; whilst, in botany, Professor D. Oliver, of Kew, has kindly named for me some of the plants. Through the assistance of these eminent authorities, I trust that the scientific names scattered throughout the book may be depended upon as correct. NIJNI NOVGOROD, October Wi, 1873. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Arrival at Greytown— The River San Juan— Silting up of the Harbour —Crossing the Bar — Lives lost on it — Sharks— Christopher Colum- bus— Appearance of the Town — Trade — Healthiness of the Town and its probable cause — Comparison between Greytown, Pernam- buco, and Maceio — Wild Fruits — Plants — Parrots, Toucans, and Tanagers — Butterflies and Beetles — Mimetic Forms — Alligators : Boy drowned at Blewfields by one — Their method of catching "Wild Pigs .... ...... 1 CHAPTER II. Commence Journey up San Juan River — Palms and Wild Canes — Plan- tations— The Colorado River— Proposed Improvement of the River — Progress of the Delta — Mosquitoes — Disagreeable Night • — Fine Morning — Vegetation of the Banks — Seripiqui River — Mot-mots — Foraging Ants: their method of Hunting — Ant- Thrushes — They attack the Nests of other Ants — Birds' Nests, how preserved from them — Reasoning powers in Ants — Parallel between the Mammalia and the Hymenoptera— Utopia . .11 CHAPTER III. Journey up River continued — Wild Pigs and Jaguar — Bungos — Reach Machuca — Castillo — Capture of Castillo by Xelson — India-rubber Trade — Rubber-men — Method of making India-rubber — Congo Monkeys— Macaws — The Savallo River — Endurance of the Boat- men— San Carlos — Interoceanic Canal — Advantages of the Nica- raguan Route — The Rio Frio — Stories about the Wild Indians — Indian Captive Children — Expeditions up the Rio Frio — Ame- rican River Steamboats . 30 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE The Lake of Nicaragua — Ometepec — Becalmed on the Lake — White Cygnets — Reach SanUbaldo — Ride across the Plains — Vegetation of the Plains — Armadillo Savannahs — Jicara Trees — Jicara Bowls — Origin of Gourd-shaped Pottery — Coyotes — Mule-breeding — Beach Acoyapo — Festu, — Cross High Range — Esquipula — The Rio Mico — Supposed Statues on its Banks — Pital — Cultivation of Maize —Its use from the earliest times in America — Separation of the Maize-eating from the Man di oca -eating Indigenes of America —Tortillas — Sugar-making — Enter the Forest of the Atlantic Slope — Vegetation of the Forest — Muddy Roads — Arrive at Santo Domingo . . . . . . . . .43 CHAPTER V. Geographical position of Santo Domingo — Physical Geography — The Inhabitants — Mixed Races — Negroes and Indians compared — Women — Establishment of the Chontales Gold Mining Company —My House and Garden — Fruits — Plantains and Bananas : pro- bably not indigenous to America : propagated from Shoots : do not generally mature their Seeds —Fig-trees — Granadillas and Papaws — Vegetables — Dependence of Flowers on Insects for their Fertilization — Insect Plagues— Leaf-cutting Ants : their method of defoliating Trees : their Nests — Some Trees are not touched by the Ants— Foreign Trees are very subject to their attack — Method of Destroying the Ants — Migration of the Ants from a Nest attacked — Corrosive Sublimate causes a sort of Madness amongst them — Indian plan of preventing their ascending young Trees — Leaf -cutting Ants are fungus -growers and eaters — Sagacity of the Ants . . . . . . . .61 CHAPTER VI. Configuration of the Ground at Santo Domingo — Excavation of Valleys —Geology of the District — Decomposition of the Rocks — Gold- mining— Auriferous Quartz Veins — Mode of « occurrence of the Gold — Lodes richer next the surface than at lower depths — Ex- cavation and Reduction of the Ore — Extraction of the Gold — " Mantos " — Origin of Mineral Veins: their connection with intrusions of Plutonic Rocks . 85 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER VII. PAGE Climate of the north-eastern side of Nicaragua — Excursions around Santo Domingo— The Artigua— Corruption of Ancient Names- Butterflies, Spiders, and Wasps — Humming-birds, Beetles, and Ants — Plants and Trees — Timber — Monkey attacked by Eagle — White-faced Monkey — Anecdotes of a tame one — Curassows and other game Birds — Trogons, Woodpeckers, Mot-mots, and Toucans .......... 103 CHAPTER VIII. Description of San Antonio Valley — Great variety of animal life— Pitcher-flowered Marcgravias — Flowers fertilized by Humming- birds— By Insects— Provision in some flowers to prevent insects, not adapted for carrying the pollen, from obtaining access to the nectaries — Stories about Wasps —Humming-birds bathing — Nest of Myriapods — Ascent of Pefia Blanca — Tapirs and Jaguars — Summit of Pena Blanca . . . . . . .12') CHAPTER IX. Journey to Juigalpa — Description of Libertad — The Priest and the Bell — Migratory Butterflies and Moths —Indian Graves — Ancient Names — Dry River-beds — Monkeys and Wasps — Reach Juigalpa — Ride in neighbourhood — Abundance of small birds — A Poor Cripple — The " Toledo " — Trogons - - Waterfall - - Sepulchral Mounds — Broken Statues — The Sign of the Cross — Contrast between the ancient and the present Inhabitants — Night Life . 150 CHAPTER X. Juigalpa — A Nicaraguan Family — Description of the Road from Jui- galpa to Santo Domingo — Comparative scarcity of Insects in Nica- ragua in 1872 — Water-bearing Plants — Insect-traps — The south- western edge of the Forest Region — Influence of Cultivation upon it — Sagacity of the Mule .176 CHAPTER XI. Start on journey to Segovia — Rocky Mountain Road — A Poor Lodging — The Rock of Cuapo — The use of large beaks in some Birds — • xii CONTENTS. PAGE Comoapa — A Native Doctor — Vultures— Flight of Birds that Soar — Natives live from generation to generation on the same spot — Do not give distinctive Names to the Rivers — Caribs barter Guns and Iron-pots for Dogs — The Hairless Dogs of Tropical America- Difference between Artificial and Natural Selection— The cause of Sterility between Allied Species considered— The disadvantages of a covering of hair in a domesticated animal in a Tropical Country .......... 191 CHAPTER XII. Ulama— The "Sanate" — Muymuy — Idleness of the People — Moun- tain Road— The " Bull Rock "—The Bull's-horn Thorn— Ants kept as Standing Armies by some Plants — Use of Honey- secreting Glands — Plant-lice, Scale-insects, and Leaf -hoppers furnish Ants with Honey, and in return are protected by the latter — Contest between Wasps and Ants — Waxy Secretions of the Homopterous Hemiptera .......... 212 CHAPTER XIII. Matagalpa — Aguardiente — Fermented Liquors of the Indians — The Wine Palm — Idleness of the Nicaraguans — Pine and Oak Forests — Mountain Gorge — Jinotega— Native Plough — Descend- ants of the Buccaneers — San Rafael — A Mountain Hut . .231 CHAPTER XIV. Great Range composed of Boulder Clay — Daraily — Lost on the Savan- nahs— Jamaily — A Deer-hunter's Family — Totagalpa — Walls covered with Cement and Whitewashed — Ocotal — The Valley of Depilto — Silver Mine — Geology of the Valley —Glacial Drift — The Glacial Period in Central America — Evidence that the Ice extended to the Tropics — Scarcity of Gold in the Valley Gravels — Difference of the Mollusca on the East and West Coast of the Isthmus of Darien — The Refuge of the Tropical American Animals and Plants during the Glacial Period— The Lowering of the Sea Level — The Land Shells of the West Indian Islands — The Malay Archipelago— Easter Island— Atlantis— Traditions of the Deluge . 247 CONTEXTS. xiii CHAPTER XV. PAGE A Nicaraguan Criminal — Greology between Ocotal and Totagalpa — Pre- parations at Totagalpa for their Annual Festival — Chica-drinking — Piety of the Indians — Ancient Civilization of Tropical America — Palacaguina — Hospitality of the Mestizos — Curious Custom at the Festival at Condego— Cross Range between Segovia andMata- galpa — Sontuli — Birds' Nests ....... 275 CHAPTER XVI. Concordia — Jinotega — Indian Habits retained by the People —Indian Names of Towns — Security of Travellers in Nicaragua — Native Flour-milk — Uncomfortable Lodgings — Tierrabona — Dust Whirl- wind— Initial form of a Cyclone — The origin of Cyclones . . 292 CHAPTER XVII. Cattle-raising — Don Filiberto Trano's new House — Horse-flies and Wasps — Teustepe — Spider imitating Ants — Mimetic Species — Animals with special means of defence are conspicuously marked, or in other ways attract attention — Accident to Horse — The Myyale — Illness — Conclusion of Joumey ..... 308 CHAPTER XVIII. Division of Nicaragua into three Zones — Journey from Juigalpa to Lake of Nicaragua — Voyage on Lake — Fresh -water Shells and Insects — Similarity of Fresh-water productions all over the World — Distribution of European Land and Fresh -water Shells — Dis- cussion of the reasons why Fresh-water productions have varied less than those of the Land and of the Sea . . 327 CHAPTER XIX. Iguanas and Lizards — Granada — Politics— Revolutions — Cacao Culti- vation— Masaya— The Lake of Masaya — The Volcano of Masaya — Origin of the Lake Basin ....... 338 CONTEXTS. CHAPTER XX. PAGE Indian Population of the country lying between the great lakes of Nicaragua and the Pacific — Discovery and Conquest of Nicaragua by the Spaniards — Cruelties of the Spaniards — The Indians of Western Central America all belonged to one Stock — Decadence of Mexican Civilization before the arrival of the Spaniards — The designation " Xahuatls " proposed to include all the Mexican, "Western Central American, and Peruvian Ilaces that had de- scended from the same ancient Stock — The Nahuatls distinct from the Caribs on one side and the Red Indians on the oilier- Discussion of the question of the peopling of America . .358 CHAPTER XXI. Return to Santo Domingo— The Birds of Chontales — The Insects of Chontales — Mimetic forms — Departure from the Mines — Nica- ragua as a field for Emigration — Journey to Greytown — Return to England . ... 374 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE JAGUAR Frontispiece. ALLIGATORS PAGE 9 MOT-MOTS OF CHONTALES 16 COMMISSIONER'S HOUSE AT SANTO DOMINGO . . . 66 NEST OF LEAF-CUTTING ANT SO SECTION OF MINE SHOWING METHOD OF EXTRACTING THE ORE 92 QUARTZ-STAMPING MACHINERY 93 SECTION OF SAN ANTONIO LODE 94 HUMMING-BIRDS (Florisuga mellivora, Linn.) . . .ill TONGUES OF HUMMING-BIRD AND WOODPECKER . 113,114 PITCHER-FLOWER (Marcgravia nepenthoides) . . . ,129 FLOWER OF THE " PALOSABRE '' 130 PENA BLANCA 148 INDIAN STATUES 165 PATH UP STEEP HILL 193 QUISCALUS 213 BULL'S-HORN THORN . 218 LEAF OF MELASTOMA ........ 223 NATIVE STILL . . 233 NATIVE PLOUGH 239 GEOLOGICAL SECTION NEAR OCOTAL . 261 xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE HORNET AND MIMETIC Bua 3i.9 GEOLOGICAL SECTION AT MASAYA 348 LONGICORN BEETLES OF CHONTALES . ... 380 LEAF INSECT . 381 Moss INSECT .... 382 SKETCH MAP OF NICARAGUA at the end. THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA CHAPTER I. Arrival at Greytown— The River San Juan —Silting up of the Harbour— Crossing the Bar — Lives lost on it— Sharks — Christopher Columbus — Appearance of the Town — Trade — Healthiness of the Town and its probable cause — Conirjarison between Greytown, Pernambuco, and Maceio — Wild Fruits — Plants — Parrots, Toucans, and Tanagers — Butterflies and Beetles — Mimetic Forms— Alligators — Boy drowned at Blew- fields by an Alligator — Their method of catching wild Pigs. AT noon on the 15th February, 1868, the R.M.S.S. V * Solent, in which I was a passenger, anchored off Grey- town, or San Juan del Norte, the Atlantic port of Nicaragua in Central America. We lay about a mile from the shore, and saw a low flat coast stretching before us. It was the delta of the river San Juan, into which flows the drainage of a great part of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and which is the outlet for the waters of the great lake of Nicaragua. Its water-shed extends to within a few miles of the Pacific, for here the isthmus of Central America, as in the great continents to the north and south of it, sends off by far the largest portion of its drainage to the Atlantic. In the rainy season the San 2 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. I. Juan is a noble river, and even in the dry months, from Marcli to June, there is sufficient water coming down from the lake to keep open a fine harbour, if it were not that ahout twenty miles above its mouth it begins to «/ o dissipate its force by sending off a large branch called the Colorado river, and lower down parts with more of its waters by side channels. Twenty years ago the main body of water ran past Greytown ; there was then a magnificant port, and large ships sailed up to the town, but for several years past the Colorado branch has been taking away more and more of the waters, and the port of Greytown has in consequence silted up. All ships now have to lie off outside, and a shallow and, in heavy weather, dangerous bar has to be crossed. All we could see from the steamer was the sandy beach on which the white surf was breaking, and be- hind a fringe of bushes with a few coco-nut palms holding up their feathery crowns, and in the distance a low background of dark foliage. Before we anchored a gun was fired, and in quick answer to the signal some canoes, paddled by negroes of the Mosquito coast, here called " Caribs," were seen crossing the bar, and in a few minutes they were alongside. Getting into one of the v O O canoes with my boxes, I was rapidly paddled towards the shore. When we reached the bar we were dexterously taken over it — the Caribs waited just outside until a higher wave than usual came rolling in, then paddling with all their might we were carried over on its crest, and found ourselves in the smooth water of the river. Many lives have been lost on this bar. In 1872 the commander of the United States surveying expedition and six of his men were drowned in trying to cross it in •Ch. L] ARRIVAL AT GREYTOTVX. 3 / .heavy weather. Only a few mangled remnants of their bodies were ever found ; for what adds to the horror of an upset at this place, and perhaps has unnerved many a man at a critical moment, is that large sharks swarm about the entrance to the river. We saw the fin of one, rising above the surface of the water as it swam, lazily about ; and the sailors of the nitdl steamers when lying off the port often amuse themselves by catching them with large hooks baited with pieces of meat. It is pro- bable that it was at one of the mouths of the San Juan that Columbus, in his fourth voyage, lost a boat's crew who had been sent for wood and fresh water, and when returning were swamped 011 the bar. Columbus had rounded Cape Gracias a Dios four days before, and had sailed down the coast with a fair wind and tide, so that he might easily have reached the San Juan. Inside the bar wre were in smooth water, for but a small stream is discharged by this channel. On our right was a sandy beach, on our left great beds of grass growing out of the shoal water — weedy banks filling up the once spacious harbour, and cattle wading amongst the long grass, where within the last twenty years a frigate has lain at anchor. Wading and aquatic birds are abundant in these marshes, amongst which white cranes and a chocolate brown jacana, with lemon yellow underwing, are the most conspicuous. A large alligator lazily crawled off a mud spit into the water, where he floated, showing only his eyes and the pointed scales of his back above the surface. The town was now in full \iew — neat, white painted houses, with plume-crowned palms rising amongst and over them; and we landed at one of several wooden wharves that jut into the river. B 2 4 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. I, Grey town, though only a small place, is one of the neatest tropical towns that I have visited. The houses, especially in the business portion of the town, are well- built of wood, and painted white with brown roofs. Pretty flower gardens surround or front many of them. Others are nearly hidden amongst palms and bread-fruit,. orange, mango, and other tropical fruit trees. A lovely creeper (Antigonon leptopus), with festoons of pink and rose-coloured flowers, adorns some of the gardens. It is called la vcycssima, " the beautiful," by the natives, and I found it afterwards growing wild in the provinces of Matagalpa and Segovia, where it was one of the great favourites of the flower-loving Indians. The land at Greytown and around it is perfectly level. The square, the open spaces, and many of the streets are covered with short grass that makes a beautiful sward to walk on. The trade in the town is almost entirely in the hands of foreign residents, amongst whom Mr. Hollenbeck, a citizen of the United States, is one of the most enter- prising. A considerable import trade is done with the States and England, and coffee, indigo, hides, cacao, sugar, logwood, and India-rubber are the principal ex- ports. I called on Dr. Green, the British Consul, and found him a most courteous and amiable gentleman, ever ready to afford protection or advice to his countrymen., and on very friendly terms with the native authorities. He has lived for many years in Nicaragua, and his many charitable kindnesses, and especially the medical assist- ance that he renders in all cases of emergency, free of charge, have made him very popular at Greytown. His- beautiful house and grounds, with a fine avenue of coco- nut trees in full bearing, form one of the most attractive •Ch. I.] CLIMATE OF GREYTOWX. 5 .sights in Greytown. I found Mr. Paton, the vice-consul, equally obliging, and I am indebted to him for much in- formation respecting the trade of the port, particularly with regard to the export of India-rubber, the develop- ment of which trade he was one of the first to encourage. Behind the town there is a Ions; lasroon, and for several O O ' miles back the land is quite level, and interspersed with lakes and ponds with much marshy ground. Perfectly level, surrounded by swamps, and without any system of drainage, either natural or artificial, excepting such as the sandy soil affords, Greytown might be thought a very -•unhealthy site for a town. Notwithstanding, however, its apparent disadvantages, and that for nine months of the year it is subject to heavy tropical rains, it is com- paratively healthy, and freer from fever than many places tlrat appear at first sight better situated. Much is due •to the porous sandy soil, but more I believe to what appears at first sight an element of danger, the perfect .flatness of the ground. Where there are hills there must be hollows, and in these the air stagnates ; whilst here, where the land is quite level, the trade winds that blow pretty constantly find their way to every part, and carry off the emanations from the soil. As a similar in- stance I may mention the city of Pernambuco, on the eastern coast of Brazil, containing 80,000 inhabitants. It is perfectly level like Greytown, surrounded and in- tersected with channels of water, above the level of which it only stands a few feet. The crowded parts of the town .are noted for their evil smells and filth, but, though entirely without drainage it is noted for its healthiness ; whilst a little lower down the coast the town of Maceio, situated . :about sixty feet above the sea, surrounded by undulating 6 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Cli. I. ranges and •with a good natural drainage is much more- unhealthy, fevers being very prevalent. As at Grey- town so at Pernambuco, the trade winds blow with much regularity, and there are no hills nor hollowrs to interfere with the movements of the air, so that miasmatic ex- halations cannot accumulate. Surrounding the cleared portions around Greytown is- a scrubby bush, amongst which are many guayava trees (Psidium sp.) having a fruit like a small apple filled with seeds, of a sub- acid flavour, from which the cele- brated guava jelly is made. The fruit itself often occasions severe fits of indigestion, and many of the natives will not swallow the small seeds, but only the pulpy portion, which is said to be harmless. I saw another fruit growing here, a yellow berry about the size- of a cherry, called " Nancito ' by the natives. It is often preserved by them with spirit and eaten like olives. Beyond the brushwood, which grows where the original forest has been cut down, there are large trees- covered with numerous epiphytes — Tillandsias, orchids, ferns, and a hundred others, that make every big tree an aerial botanical garden. Great arums are perched on the forks and send down roots like cords to the ground, whilst lianas run from tree to tree or hang in loops and folds like the disordered tackle of a ship. Green parrots fly over in screaming flocks, or nestle- in loving couples amidst the foliage ; toucans hop along the branches; turning their long, highly- coloured beaks from side to side with an old-fashioned look, and beautiful tanagers (RamphoccBlus passer inii) frequent the outskirts of the forest, all velvety black, excepting a large patch of fiery-red above the tail, which, renders the bird very Ch.L] BEETLES RESEMBLING CATERPILLARS. 7 conspicuous. It is only the male that is thus coloured, the female being clothed in a sober suit of greenish- brown. I think this bird is polygamous, for several of the brown ones were always seen with one of the red- •/ and-black ones. The bright colours of the male must make it very conspicuous to birds of prey, and, probably in consequence, it is not nearly so bold as the obscurely- coloured females. When a clear space in the brushwood is to be crossed, such as a road, two or three of the females will fly across first, before the male will venture */ ' to do so ; and he is always more careful to get himself concealed amongst the foliage than his mates. I walked some distance into the forest along swampy paths cut by charcoal burners, and saw many beautiful and curious insects. Amongst the numerous butterflies, large blue Morphos and narrow, weak-winged Heliconidre, striped and spotted with yellow, red, and black, were the most conspicuous and most characteristic of tropical America. Amongst the beetles I found a curious longi- corn (Desmiphora fasciculate^ covered with long brown and black hairs, and closely resembling some of the short, thick, hairy caterpillars that are common on the bushes. Other closely allied species hide under fallen branches and logs, but this one clung exposed amongst the leaves, its antermaB concealed against its body, and its resemblance to a caterpillar so great, that I was myself at first deceived bv it. It is well known that insectivorous » birds will not touch a hairy caterpillar, and this is only one of numberless instances where insects, that have some special protection against their enemies, are closely imi- tated by others belonging to different genera, and even different orders. Thus, wasps and stinging ants have THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. I. hosts of imitators amongst moths, beetles, and bugs, and I shall have many curious facts to relate concerning these mimetic resemblances. To those not acquainted with Mr. Bates's admirable remarks on mimetic forms, I must explain that it is only on account of the poverty of our language that we have to speak of one species imi- tating another, as if it were a conscious act. No such idea is entertained, and it might have been well if some new term had been adopted to express what is meant. These deceptive resemblances are supposed, by the advo- cates of the origin of species by natural selection, to have been brought about by varieties of one species, that somewhat resembled another having special means of protection, being preserved from their enemies in conse- quence of that unconscious imitation. The resemblance, which was perhaps at first only remote, is supposed to have been increased in the course of ages by the varieties, that more and more closely approached the species imi- tated, in form, colour, and movements, being protected. These resemblances are not only between insects of diffe- rent genera and orders, but between insects and flowers, leaves, twigs, and bark of trees, and between insects and inanimate nature/ They serve often for concealment, as when leaves are imitated by leaf-insects and many but- terflies ; or lor a disguise that enables predatory species to get within reach of their prey, as in those spiders that resemble the petals of flowers amongst which they hide. That I may not travel over the same ground twice, I may here mention that on a subsequent visit to Grey- town Mr. Hollenbeck lent me his horse, and I rode a few miles northward along the beach. On my return, I tied up the horse and walked about a mile over the 02 o M _- CL. I.] ALLIGATORS. 9 .sand-bank that extends down to the mouth of the river. A long, deep branch from the river is a favourite resort for alligators. At the far end of a sand-spit, near where some low trees grew, I saw several dark objects lying close to the water on the shelving banks. Thev were o J alligators basking in the sun. As I approached, most of them crawled into the water. Mr. Hollenbeck had been down a few days before shooting at them with a rifle, to try to get a skull of one of the monsters, and I passed a dead one that he had shot. As I. walked up the beach, I saw many that were not less than fifteen feet in length. One lay motionless, and thinking it was another dead one, I was walking up to it, and had got within three yards, when I saw the film over its eye moving, otherwise it was quite still, and its teeth projecting beyond its lips added to its intense ugliness and appearance of death. There was 110 doubt, however, about the movement of the eye-covers, and I went back a short distance to look for a stick to throw at him ; but when I turned again, he was just disappearing into the water. It is the habit of these animals to lie quite still, and catch animals that come near them. Whether or not he was waiting until I came within the swoop of his mighty tail I know not, but I had the feeling that I had escaped a great clanger. It was curious that he should have been so bold only a few days after Mr. Hollenbeck had been down shooting at them. There were not less than twenty altogether, and they swam out into the middle of the inlet and floated about, looking like logs in the water, excepting that one stretched up his head and gave a bellow like a bull. They sometimes kill calves and young horses, and I was told of one that had seized a full-grown horse, but its 10 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. I, struggles being observed, some natives ran down and saved it from being pulled into the water and drowned. I heard several stories of people being killed by them, but only one was well authenticated. This was told me by the head of the excellent Moravian Mission, at Blew- fields, who was a witness of the occurrence. He said that one Sunday, after service at their chapel at Blew- fields, several of the youths went to bathe in the river, which was rather muddy at the time ; the first to plunge in was a boy of twelve years of age, and he was imme- diately seized by a large alligator, and carried along under water. My informant and others followed in a canoe, and ultimately recovered the body, but life was extinct. The alligator cannot devour his prey beneath the water, but crawls on land with it after he has drowned it. They are said to catch wild pigs in the forest near the river by half burying themselves in the ground. The pigs come rooting amongst the soil, the alligator never moves until one gets within his reach, when he seizes it and hurries off to the river with it. They are often seen in hot weather on logs or sand-spits lying with their mouths wide open. The natives say they are catching flies : that numbers are attracted by the saliva of the mouth, and that when sufficient are collected, the alligator closes his jaws upon them, but I do not know what reliance can be placed on the story. Probably it is an invention to account for the animals lying with their mouths open; as in all half-civilised countries I have visited I have found that the natives seldom admit they do not know the reason of anything, but will invent an explanation rather than acknowledge their ignorance. CHAPTER II. Commence Journey up San Juan River — Palms and "Wild Canes — Plantations— The Colorado Elver— Proposed Improvement of the River — Progress of the Delta— Mosquitoes — Disagreeable Night — Fine Morning — Vegetation of the Banks— Seripiqui river — Mot-mots— Foraging Ants — Their method of Hunting — Ant Thrushes— They attack the Nests of other Ants— Birds' Nests, how preserved from them — Reasoning powers in Ants — Parallel between the Mammalia and the Hymenoptera — Utopia. I FOUND at Greytown the mail-boat of the Cliontales Gold Mining Company, which came down monthly in charge of Captain Anderson, an Englishman who had knocked about all over the world. The crew consisted of four Mosquito negroes, who are celebrated on this coast for their skill as boatmen. Besides the crew, we were taking three other negroes up to the mines, and with my boxes we were rather uncomfortably crowded for a long journey. The canoe itself was made from the trunk of a cedar-tree (Cedrela odorata). It had been hollowed out of a single log, and the sides afterwards built up higher with planking. This makes a very strong boat, the strength and thickness being where it is most required, at -the bottom, to withstand the thumping about amongst the rocks of the rapids. I was once in one, coming down a dangerous rapid on the river Gurupy, in Northern Brazil, when we were driven with the full force of the boiling stream broadside upon 12 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Cli. II. a, rock, with such, force that we were nearly all thrown •down, but the strong canoe was uninjured, although no common boat could have stood the shock without being staved in. Having determined to go up the river in this boat, we took provisions with us for the voyage, and one of the negroes agreed to act as cook. Having arranged everything, and breakfasted with, my kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hollenbeck, I bade them, adieu, and settled myself into the small space in the canoe that I expected to occupy for six days. Captain Anderson took the helm, the " Caribs " dipped their paddles into the water, and away we glided into a narrow channel amongst lonor crass and rushes that almost touched us o o o on either side. Grreytown, with its neat white houses, and feathery palms, and large-leaved bread-fruit-trees, was soon shut out from our view, and our boatmen ply- ing their paddles with the greatest dexterity and force, made the canoe shoot along through the still water. Soon we emerged into a wider channel where a stronger stream was running, and now AVC coasted along close to the shore to avoid the strength of the current. The banks at first were low and marshy and intersected by nu- merous channels ; the principal tree was a long, coarse- leaved palm, and there were great beds of wild cane and grass, amongst which we occasionally saw curious green lizards, witli leaf-like expansions, which like those on the leaf-insects assimilated them in appearance to the vegetation amongst which it sought its prey. As we proceeded up the river, the banks gradually became higher and drier, and we passed some small plantations of bananas and plantains made in clearings in the Ch. II.] COLORADO AEM OF THE SAX JUAX. IS forest, which now consisted of a great variety of dicotyledonous trees with many tall, graceful palms ; the undergrowth being ferns, small palms, Melastomse, Heliconian, &c. The houses at the plantations were mostly miserable thatched huts with scarcely any furni- ture, the owners passing most of their time swinging in dirty hammocks, and occasionally taking down a canoe- load of plantains to Greytown for sale. It is one of the rarest sights to see any of these squatters at work. Their plantain patch and occasionally some fish from the river suffice to keep them alive and indolent. At seven o'clock we reached the Colorado branch, which carries off the greater part of the waters of the San Juan to the sea. This is about twenty miles above Greytown, but only eighteen by the Colorado to the sea, and is near the head of the delta, as I have already v mentioned. The main body of water formerly flowed down past Greytown, and kept the harbour there open, but a few years ago, during a heavy flood, the river greatly enlarged and deepened the entrance to the Colorado Channel, and since then year by year the Grey- town harbour has been silting up. Xow, (I am writing in 1873) there is twelve feet of water 011 the bar at the Colorado in the height of the dry season, whilst at Greytown the outlet of the river is sometimes closed altogether. The merchants at Greytown have enter- tained the project of dredging out the channel again, but now that the river has found a nearer way to the sea by the Colorado this would be a herculean task, and it would cost much less money to move the whole town to the Colorado, and then by dredging the bar there a fine harbour might easilv be made, but unfortunately 14 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. II. the Colorado is in Costa Rica, the Greytown branch in Nicaragua, and there are constant bickerings between the two states respecting the outlet of this fine river, which makes any well-considered scheme for the im- provement of it impracticable at present. A sensible solution of the difficulty, would be a federation of the two small republics, but the heads of the political parties in the two countries see in this a danger to their petty ambitions, and will not risk the step, and so the boundary question remains an open one, threatening at any moment to plunge the two countries into an impoverishing war. If the Colorado were not to be interfered with by man, it would, in the course of ages, carry down great quantities of mud, sand, and trunks of trees, and gradually form sand-banks at its mouth, pushing out the delta further and further at this point, until it was greatly in advance of the rest of the coast ; the river would then break through again by some nearer channel, and the Colorado would be silted up as the Lower San Juan is being at present. The numerous half-filled-up channels and long lagoons throughout the delta show the various courses the river has at different times taken. Our boatmen paddled on until nine o'clock, when we anchored in the middle of the stream, which was here about one hundred yards wide. Distant as we were from the shores, we were not too far for the mosquitoes, which came off in myriads to the banquet upon our blood. Sleep for me was impossible, and to add to the discomfort, at midnight the rain commenced to come down in torrents. We had an old tarpaulin with us, €h. II.] BOAT JOURNEY UP THE SAX JUAN. 15 but it was full of holes, and let in the water in little streams, so that I was soon soaked to the skin. Alto- gether, with the streaming wet and the mosquitoes, it was one of the most uncomfortable nights I have ever passed. The waning moon was sufficiently high at four o'clock to allow us to bring the long dreary night to an end, and to commence paddling up the river again. As the day broke the rain ceased, the mists cleared away, our V * spirits revived, and we forgot our discomforts of the night in admiration of the beauties of the river. The banks were hidden by a curtain of creeping and twining plants, many of which bore beautiful flowers, and the greenery was further varied here and there by the white stems of the cecropia trees, ^"ow and then we passed more open spots, affording glimpses each into the forest, where grew, in the dark shade, slender-stemmed palms and beautiful tree-ferns, contrasting with the great leaves of the Heliconioc. At seven we breakfasted on a sand-bank, and got our clothes and blankets dried. There were numerous tracks of alligators, but it was too early to look for their eggs in the sand ; a month later, in March, when the river falls, they are found in abundance, and eaten by the canoe-men. At noon we reached the point where the Seripiqui, a river coming down from the interior of Costa Rica, joins the San Juan about thirty miles above Greytown. The Seri- piqui is navigable by canoes for about twenty miles from this point, and then commences a rough mountain mule- track to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. WQ paddled on all the afternoon with little change in the river. At eight we anchored for the night, and 1G THE NATURALIST IX XICARAGUA. [Ch. II, although it rained heavily again, I was better prepared for it, and, coiling myself up under an umbrella beneath the tarpaulin, managed to sleep a little. We started again before daylight, and at ten stopped at a small clearing for breakfast. I strolled back a little way into the gloomy forest, but it was not easy to get along on account of the undergrowth and numerous climbing plants that bound it together. I saw one of the large olive-green and brown mot-mots HEADS OF MOT-MOTS. (Momotus martii), sitting up on a branch of a tree, moving its long curious tail from side to side, so that it was nearly at right angles to its body. I afterwards saw other species in the forests and savannahs of Chontales. They all have several characters in. Oh. II.] FORAGIXG AXIS. 17 common, which are linked together in a series of gra- dations from species to species. One of these features is a spot of black feathers on the breast. In some species this is edged with blue, in others, as in the species mentioned above, these black feathers are nearly obsolete, forming only a small black spot nearly hidden amongst the rust-coloured feathers of the breast. Characters such as these, very conspicuous in some species, shading off in others through various gradations to insignificance, if not extinction, are known by natural- ists to occur in numerous genera ; and so far they have only been explained on the supposition of the descent of the different species from a common progenitor. As I returned to the boat, I crossed a column of the army or foraging ants, many of them dragging along the legs and mangled bodies of insects that they had captured in their foray. I afterwards often encountered these ants in the forests, and it may be convenient to place together all the facts I learnt respecting them. ECITONS, OR FORAGING ANTS. — The Ecitons, or forag- ing ants, are very numerous throughout Central America. Whilst the leaf- cutting ants are entirely vegetable feeders, the foraging ants are hunters, and live solely on insects or other prey; and it is a curious analogy that, like the hunting races of mankind, they have to change their hunting-grounds when one is exhausted, and move on to another. In Nicaragua they are generally called " Army Ants." One of the smaller species (Edton predator) used occasionally to visit our house and swarm over the floors and walls, searching every cranny, and driving out the cockroaches and spiders, many of which were caught, c 18 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. II. pulled, bitten to pieces and carried off. The individuals of this species were of various sizes ; the smallest measuring one and a quarter line's, and the largest three lines, or a quarter of an inch. I saw many large armies of this, or a closely Allied species, in the forest. My attention was generally first called to them by the twittering of some small birds, belonging to several different species, that follow the ants in the woods. On approaching, a dense body of the ants, three or four yards wide, and so numerous as to blacken the ground, would be seen moving rapidly in one direc- tion, examining every cranny, and underneath every fallen leaf. On the flanks, and in advance of the main body, smaller columns would be pushed out. These smaller columns would generally first flush the cock- roaches, grasshoppers, and spiders. The pursuqd insects would rapidly make off, but many, in their confusion and terror, would bound right into the midst of the main body of ants. At first the grasshopper, when it found itself in the midst of its enemies, would give vigorous leaps, with pqrhaps two or three of the ants clinging to its legs. Then it would stop a moment to rest, and that moment would be fatal, for the tiny foes would swarm over the prey, and after a few more ineffectual struggles it would succumb to its fate, and soon be bitten to pieces and carried off to the rear. The greatest catch of the ants was, however, when they got amongst some fallen brusliAvood. The cockroaches, spiders, and other insects, instead of running right away, would ascend the fallen branches and remain there, whilst the host of ants were occupying all the ground below. By-and-by up would come some of the ants, following every branch, and Ch. II.] REMARKABLE CASE OF IXSTIXCT. 19 driving before tliem their prey to the ends of the small twigs, when nothing remained for them but to leap, and they would alight in the very throng of their foes, with the result of being certainly caught and pulled to pieces. Many of the spiders would escape by hanging suspended by a thread of silk from the branches, safe from the foes that swarmed both above and below. I noticed that spiders generally were most intelligent in escaping, and did not, like the cockroaches and other insects, take shelter in the first hiding-place they found, only to be driven out again, or perhaps caught by the advancing army of ants. I have often seen large spiders making off many yards in advance, and apparently determined to put a good distance between themselves and the foe. I once saw one of the false spiders, or harvest-men (Phalangidce), standing in the midst of an army of ants, and with the greatest circumspection and .coolness lifting, one after the other, its long legs, which supported its body above their reach. Sometimes as many as five out of its eight legs would be lifted at once, and whenever an ant approached one of those on which it stood, there was always a clear space within reach to put down another, so as to be able to hold up the threatened one out of clanger. I was much more surprised with the behaviour of a green, leaf-like locust. This insect stood immovably amongst a host of ants, many of which ran over its legs, without ever discovering there was food within their reach. So fixed was its instinctive knowledge that its safety depended on its immovability, that it allowed me to pick it up and replace it amongst the ants without making a single effort to escape. This species closely c 2 20 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. II, resembles a green leaf, and the other senses, which in the Ecitons appear to be more acute than that of sight,, must have been completely deceived. It might easily have escaped from the ants by using its wings, but it would only have fallen into as great a danger, for the numerous birds that accompany the army ants are ever on the outlook for any insect that may fly up, and the heavy flying locusts, grasshoppers, and cockroaches have no chance of escape. Several species of ant-thrushes always accompany the army ants in the forest. They do not, however, feed on the ants, but on the insects they disturb. Besides the ant-thrushes, trogons, creepers, and a variety of other birds, are often seen on the branches of trees above where an ant army is foraging below, pursuing and catching the insects that fly up. The insects caught by the ants are dismembered, and their too bulky bodies bitten to pieces and carried off to the rear ; and behind the army there are always small columns engaged on this duty. I have followed up these columns often ; generally they led to dense masses of impenetrable brushwood, but twice they led me to cracks in the ground, down which the ants dragged their prey. These habitations are only temporary, for in a few days not an ant would be seen in the neighbourhood, but all would have moved off to fresh hunting-grounds. Another much larger species of foraging ant (Eciton hamata) hunts sometimes in dense armies, sometimes in columns, according to the prey it may be after. When in columns, I found that it was generally, if not always, in search of the nests of another ant (Hypoclinea sp.)t which bear their young in holes in rotten trunks of fallen timber, and are very common in cleared places. The €h. II.] PREY OF THE ECITOXS. 21 Ecitons hunt about in columns, which branch off in various directions. When a fallen log is reached, the •column spreads out over it, searching through all the holes and cracks. The workers are of various sizes, and the smallest are here of use, for they squeeze themselves into the narrowest holes, and search out their prey in the furthest ramifications of the nests. When a nest of the Hypoclinea is attacked, the ants rush out, carrying the larvai and pupse in their jaws, but are immediately despoiled of them by the Ecitons, which are running about in every direction with great swiftness. When- ever they come across a Hypoclinea carrying a larva or pupa, they take it from, it so quickly, that I could never ascertain exactly how it was done. As soon as an Eciton gets hold of its prey, it rushes off back along the advancing column, which is composed of two sets, one hurrying forward, the other returning laden with their booty, but all and always in the greatest haste and apparent hurry. About the nest which they are har- rying, all appears in confusion, Ecitons running here and there and everywhere in the greatest haste and disorder ; but the result of all this apparent confusion is that scarcely a single Hypoclinea gets away with a pupa or larva. I never saw the Ecitons injure the Hypoclineas themselves, they were always contented with despoiling them of their young. The ant that is attacked is a very cowardly species, and never shows fight. I often found it running about sipping at the glands of leaves, or milking aphides, leaf-hoppers, or scale-insects that it found unattended by other ants. On the approach of another, though of a much smaller species, it would immediately run away. Probably this cowardly and unantly disposition has 22 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Cli. II, caused it to become the prey of the Eciton. At any rate, I never saw the Ecitons attack the nest of any other species. The moving columns of Ecitons are composed almost entirely of workers of different sizes, hut at intervals of two or three yards there are larger and lighter coloured individuals that often stop, and sometimes run a little backward, stopping and touching some of the ants with their antenna?. They look like the officers giving orders and directing the march of the column. This species is often met with in the forest, not in quest of one particular form of prey, but hunting, like Eciton predator, only spread out over a much greater space of ground. Crickets, grasshoppers, scorpions, cen- tipedes, wood-lice, cockroaches, and spiders are driven out from below the fallen leaves and branches. Many of them are caught by the ants, others that get away are picked up by the numerous birds that accompany the ants, as vultures follow the armies of the East. The ants send off exploring parties up the trees, which hunt for nests of wasps, bees, and probably birds. If they find any, they soon communicate the intelligence to the army below, and a column is sent up immediately to take pos- session of the prize. I have seen them pulling out the larva) and pupa) from the cells of a large wasp's nest, whilst the wasps hovered about, powerless, before the multitude of the invaders, to render any protection to their young. I have no doubt that many birds have acquired instincts to combat or avoid the great danger to which their young are t exposed by the attacks of these and' other ants. Trogons, parrots, toucans, mot-mots, and: Ch. II.] EYES OF THE ECITOXS. 23 many other birds build in holes of trees or in the ground, and these, with their heads ever turned to the only entrance, are in the best possible position to pick off the solitary parties when they first approach, and thus prevent them from carrying to the main army intelligence about the nest. Some of these birds, and especially the toucans, have bills beautifully adapted for picking up the ants before they reach the nest. Many of the smaller birds build on the branches of the bulPs- horn thorn, which is always thickly covered with small stinging honey-eating ants, that would not allow the Ecitons to ascend these trees. Amongst the mammalia the opossums can convey their young out of danger in their pouches, and the females of many of the tree-rats and mice have a hard callosity near the teats, to which the young cling with their milk teeth, and can be dragged away by the mother to a place of safety. The eyes in the Ecitons are very small, in some of the species imperfect, and in others entirely absent; in this they differ greatly from the Psciidomyrma ants, which hunt singly and which have the eyes greatly developed. The imperfection of eyesight in the Ecitons is an advantage to the community, and to their par- ticular mode of hunting. It keeps them together, and prevents individual ants from starting off alone after objects that, if their eyesight were better, they might discover at a distance ; the Ecitons and most other ants follow each other by scent, and, I believe, they can communicate the presence of danger, of booty, or other intelligence, to a distance by the different intensity or qualities of the odours given off. I one clay saw a column 21 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. II. of Ecitoii hamata running along the foot of a nearly perpendicular tramway cutting, the side of which was about six feet high. At one point I noticed a sort of assembly of about a dozen individuals that appeared in consultation. Suddenly one ant left the conclave, and ran with great speed up the perpendicular face of the cutting without stopping. It was followed by others, which, however, did not keep straight on like the first, but ran a short way, then returned, then again followed a little further than the first time. They were evidently scenting the trail of the pioneer, and making it per- manently recognisable. These ants followed the exact line taken by the first one, although it was far out of sight. Wherever it had made a slight detour they did so likewise. I scraped with my knife a small portion of the clay on the trail, and the ants were com- pletely at fault for a time which way to go. Those ascending and those descending stopped at the scraped portion, and made short circuits until they hit the scented trail again, when all their hesitation vanished, and they ran up and down it with the greatest confi- dence. On gaining the top of the cutting, the ants entered some brushwood suitable for hunting. In a very short space of time the information was commu- nicated to the ants below, and a dense column rushed up to search for their prey. The Ecitons are singular amongst the ants in this respect, that they have no fixed habitations, but move on from one place to another, as they exhaust the hunting grounds around them. I think Eciton hamata does not stay more than four or five days in one place. I hai e sometimes come across the migratory columns; they nu) easily be known Ch. II.] TEMPORARY ANTS' -NESTS. 25 by all the common workers moving in one direction, many of them carrying the larvae and pupae carefully in their jaws. Here and there one of the light-coloured officers moves backwards and forwards directing the columns. Such a column is 'of enormous length, and contains many thousands if not millions of individuals. I have sometimes followed 'them up for two or three hundred yards without getting to the end. They make their temporary habitations in hollow trees, and sometimes underneath large fallen trunks that offer suitable hollows. A nest that I came across in the latter situation was open at one side. The ants were clustered together in a dense mass, like a great swarm of bees, hanging from the roof, but reaching to the ground below. Their innumerable lon c> *• munerative one. According to the information sup- plied to me at Greytown by Mr. Paton, the exports of rubber from that port had increased from 401,475 Ibs., valued at 112,413 dollars, in 1867, to 754,886 Ibs., valued •at 226,465 dollars, in 1871. India rubber was well known to the ancient inhabitants of Central America. Before the Spanish conquest the Mexicans played with balls made from it, and it still bears its Aztec name of UUi, from which the Spaniards call the collectors of it Ulkros. It is obtained from quite a different tree, and prepared in a different manner, from the rubber of the Amazons. The latter is taken from the Siphonia elastica, a Euphorbiaceous tree ; but in Central America the tree that yields it is a specimen of wild fig (Castilloa elastica}. It is easily known by its large leaves, and I saw several whilst ascending the river. When the collectors find an untapped one in the forest, they first make a ladder out of the lianas or " vejuccos" that hang from every tree ; this they do by tying short pieces of wood across them with small lianas, many of which are as tough as cord. They then proceed to score the bark, with cuts which extend nearly round the tree like the letter Y, the point being downwards. A cut like this is made about every three feet all the way up the trunk. The milk will all run out of a tree in about an hour after it is cut, and is D 31 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. III. collected into a large tin bottle made flat on one side and furnished with straps to fix on to a man's back. A de- coction is made from another liana (Calowjction spcci- osum), and this on being added to the milk, in the pro- portion of one pint to a gallon, coagulates it to rubber, which is made into round flat cakes. A large tree, five feet in diameter, will yield when first cut about twenty gallons of milk, each gallon of which makes two and a half pounds of rubber. I was told that the tree recovers from the wounds and may be cut again after the lapse of a few months ; but several that I saw were killed through the large Harlequin beetle (Acroeinus longimanus) laying its eggs in the cuts, and the grubs that are hatched boring- great holes all through the trunk. When these grubs are at work you can hear their rasping by standing at the bottom of the tree, and the wood-dust thrown out of their burrows accumulates in heaps on the ground below. The Government attempts no supervision of the forests : anyone may cut the trees, and great destruction is going on amongst them through the young ones being tapped as well as the full- crown ones. The tree crrows very o o */ quickly, and plantations of it might easily be made, which would in the course of ten or twelve years become highly remunerative. We left Castillo at daylight the next morning, and continued our journey up the river. There was but little change in its banks. We saw many tall graceful palms and tree ferns, but most of the trees were dicoty- ledons. Amongst these the mahogany (Sicictoma maJio- fjnni} and the cedar (Cedrcla odorata) are now rare near the river, but a few trees were pointed out to me. High up in one tree, underneath which we passed, were seated Cb. III.] REACH THE LAKE. 35 some of the black Congo monkeys (Mycetes pattiatus) which at times, especially before rain and at nightfall, make a fearful howling, though not so loud as the O' O Brazilian species. Screaming macaws, in their gorgeous livery of blue, yellow, and scarlet, occasionally flew over- head, and tanagers and toucans were not uncommon. Twelve miles above Castillo we reached the mouth of the Savallo, and stayed at a house there to breakfast, the owner, a German, giving us roast wari, fowls, and eggs. He told me that there was a hot spring up the Savallo, but I had not time to go and see it. Above Savallo the San Juan is deep and sluggish, the banks low and swampy. The large palm, so common in the delta of the river, here reappeared with its large coarse leaves twenty feet in length, springing from near the ground. Our boatmen continued to paddle all day, and as night approached redoubled their exertions, singing to the stroke of their paddles. I was astonished at their endurance. They kept on until eleven o'clock at night, when we reached San Carlos, having accomplished about thirty-five miles during the day against the current. San Carlos is at the head of the river, where it issues from the great Lake of Nicaragua, about one hundred and twenty miles from Greytown. The mean level of the waters of the lake, according to the survey of Colonel 0. \Y. Childs, in 1851, is 107^ feet, so that the river falls on an average a little less than one foot per mile. The height of the lowest pass between the lake and the Pacific is said to be twenty-six feet above the lake, therefore at that point the highest elevation between the two oceans is only about 133 feet; but even allowing that an error of a few feet may be discovered when a thorough D 2 36 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Hi. III. survey is made across from sea to sea, there can be no doubt tbat at this point occurs the lowest pass between the Atlantic and the Pacific in Central America. This fact, and the immense natural reservoir of water near the head of the navigation, point out this route as a practi- cable one for a ship canal between the two oceans. Instead of cutting a canal from the head of the delta of the San Juan to the sea, as has been proposed, the Colorado branch might be straightened, and dredged to the required depth. Higher up, the Torre Castillo and Machuca Rapids form natural dams across the river. These might be raised, locks formed round them, and the water deepened by dredging between them. In this way the great expense of cutting a canal, raid the fearful mortality that always arises amongst the labourers when excavations are made in the virgin soil of the tropics, especially in marshy lands, would be greatly lessened be- tween the lake and the Atlantic. Another great ad- vantage would be that the deepening of the river would be effected by steam power, so that it would not be re- quired to bring such a multitude of labourers to the isthmus as would be necessary if a canal were cut from the river ; the whole track, morever, passes through virgin forests rich in inexhaustible supplies of fuel. San Carlos is a small town at the foot of the great lake, where it empties its waters into the San Juan river, its only outlet to the ocean. On a hill behind the town, and commanding the entrance to the river, are the ruins of a once strong fort built by the Spaniards, the crumbling walls now green with the delicate fronds of a maidenhair fern (Adiantum). The little town consists of a single rugged street leading up from the lake. The Ch. III.] WILD IXDIAXS. 37 houses are mostly palm-thatched lints, with the bare earth^ floors seldom or never swept. The people are of mixed origin, Indian, Spanish, and Negro, the Indian element predominating. Two or three better built stores, and the quarters of the military governor, redeem the place from an appearance of utter squalor. Behind the town there are a few small clearings in the forest, where maize is grown. Some orange, banana, and plan- tain trees exhaust the list of the productions of San Carlos, which is supported by being a calling place for all vessels proceeding up and down the river, and by the Ulleros or rubber-men who start from it for expeditions up the Rio Frio and other rivers. "We found there two men who had just been brought down the Rio Frio by their companions, greatly injured by the lianas, up which they had made their ladder to ascend one of the rubber trees, having broken and precipitated them to the ground. I learnt that this was a very unusual accident, the lianas generally being very tough and strong, like O * O «/ O O7 great cables. Most fabulous stories have been told about the Rio Frio and its inhabitants ; stories of great cities, golden ornaments, and light-haired people ; it may be useful, therefore, to relate what is known about it. The Rio Frio comes down from the interior of Costa Rica, and joins the San Juan, near where the latter issues from the lake. The banks of its upper waters are inhabited by a race of Indians \vho have never been subjected by the Spaniards, and about whom very little is known. They are called Guatuses, and have been said to have red or light- coloured hair and European features, to account for which various ingenious theories 38 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. III. have been advanced ; but, unfortunately for these specula- tions, some children, and even adults, have been captured and brought down the river by the Ulleros, and all these have the usual features and coarse black hair of the Indians. One little child that Dr. Seemami and I saw at San Carlos, in 1870, had a few brownish hairs amongst the great mass of black ones ; but this character may be found amongst many of the indigenes, and may result from a very slight admixture of foreign blood. I have seen altogether five children from the Rio Frio, and a boy about sixteen years of age, and they had all the common Indian features and hair ; though it struck me that they appeared rather more intelligent than the generality of Indians. Besides these, an adult woman was captured by the rubber-men and brought down to Castillo, and I was told by several who had seen her that she did not differ in any way from the usual Indian type. The Guatuse (pronounced Watusa) is an animal about the size of a hare, very common in Central America, and good eating. It has reddish-brown fur, and the usual explanation of the Mcaraguans is that the Indians of the Rio Frio were called " Guatuses " because they had red hair. It is verv common to find the Indian tribes of *t America called after different wild animals, and my own opinion is that the origin of the fable about the red hair was a theory to explain why they were called Guatuses ; for the natives of Nicaragua, and of parts much nearer home, are fond of giving fanciful explanations of the names of places and things : thus, I have been assured by an intelligent and educated Mcaraguan, that Guate- mala was so called by the Spaniards because they found €h. III.] TREATMENT OF INDIANS. 39 the guate (a kind of gnat) was in that country bad, hence " guate malo," " bad guate," — whereas every student of Mexican history knows that the name was the Spanish attempt to pronounce the old Aztec one of Quauhtemallan, which meant the land of the Eagle. I shall have other occasions, in the course of my narrative, to show how careful a traveller in Central America must be not to accept the explanations of the natives of the names of places and things. The first people who ascended the Rio Frio were attacked by the Indians, who killed several with their arrows. Exaggerated opinions of their ferocity and courage were in consequence a long time prevalent, and the river remained unknown and unexplored, and pro- bably would have done so to the present day, if it had not been for the rubber-men. When the trade in indian rubber became fully developed, the trees in the more accessible parts of the forest were soon exhausted, and the collectors were obliged to penetrate farther and farther back into the untrodden wilds of the Atlantic slope. Some more adventurous than others ascended the Rio Frio, and being well provided with firearms, which they mercilessly used, they were able to defy the poor Indians, armed only with spears and bows and arrows, and to drive them back into the woods. The first Ulleros who ascended the river were so successful in finding rubber, that various other parties were organised, and now an ascent of the Rio Frio from San Carlos is of common occurrence. The poor Indians are now in such dread of firearms, that on the first appear- ance of a boat coming up the river they desert their houses and run into the woods for shelter. The Ulleros 40 THE XATUEALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. Ill, rush on shore and seize everything that the poor fugitives may have left behind them ; hut in some cases they have- not heen able to carry off their children, and these have been brought clown in triumph to San Carlos. Their excuse for carrying off the children is that they may be baptized and made Christians ; and I am sorry to say that this shameful treatment of the poor Indians is coun- tenanced and connived at by the authorities. I was told of one comniandante at San Carlos who had manned some canoes and proceeded up the river as far as the plantain grounds of the Indians, loaded his boats with the plantains, and brought them down to San Carlos, where the people appear to be too indolent to grow them themselves. All who have ascended the river speak of the great quantities of plantains that the Guatuses grow, and this fruit, and the abundant fish of the river, form their principal food. Their houses are large sheds open at the sides, and thatched with the " suiti" palm. As is often the case amongst the Indians, several families live in one house. The floor is kept well cleaned. I was amused with a lady in San Carlos who, in describing their well-kept houses to Dr. Seeniann and myself, pointed to her own unswept and littered earth floor and said, " They keep their houses very, very clean — as clean as this." The lad and the woman who were captured and brought down the Rio Frio both ran away — the one from San Carlos, the other from Castillo; but neither wras able to get back to their country, on account of the swamps and rivers in their way, and after wandering about the woods for some time were recaptured. I saw the lad soon after he was taken the second time. He had been a month in the woods, Ck III.] STOXE-HATCEETS. 41 living on roots and fruits, and had nearly died from star- vation. He had an intelligent, sharp, and independent look about him, and kept continually talking in his own language, apparently surprised that the people around him did not understand what he was saying. He was taken to Castillo, and met there the woman who had heen captured a year before, and had learnt to speak a little Spanish. Through her as an interpreter, he tried to get permission to return to the Rio Frio, saying that if they would let him go he would come back and bring his father and mother with him ; but this simple artifice of the poor boy was, of course, ineffectual. He was afterwards taken to Granada, for the purpose, they said, of being educated, that he might become the means of opening up communication with his tribe. The rubber-men bring down many little articles that they pillage from the Indians. They consist of cordage, made from the fibre of Bromeliaceous plants, bone hooks, and stone implements. Amongst the latter, I was fortu- nate enough to obtain a rude stone hatchet, set in a stone-cut wooden handle : it was firmly fixed in a hole made in the thick end of the handle. It is a singular fact, and one showing the persistence of particular ways of doing things through long ages amongst people be- longing to the same race that, in the ancient Mexican, Uxmal, and Palenque picture-writings, bronze axes are represented fixed in this identical manner in holes at the thick ends of the handles. We slept on board one of the steamers of the Ameri- can Transit Company. It was too dark when we arrived at San Carlos to see anything that night of the great lake, but we heard the waves breaking on the beach like 42 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Oh. Ill, a sea-shore, and from further away came that moaning sound that has from the earliest ages of history con- nected the idea of the sea with sorrow and sadness.* The steamer we stayed in was one of four river-boats belonging to the Transit Company, which was at this time in difficulties, and ultimately the boats were sold ; part of them being bought by Mr. Hollenbeck, and used by the navigation company which he established. These steamers are built expressly for shallow rivers, and are very different structures from anything we see in England. The bottom is made quite flat, and divided into compartments ; the first deck being only about eighteen inches above the water, from which it is divided by no bulwarks or other protection. Upon this deck are placed the cargo and the driving machinery. A vertical boiler is fixed at the bow, and two horizontal engines, driving a large paddle-wheel, at the stern. The second deck is for passengers, and is raised on light wooden pillars braced with iron rods about seven feet above the first. Above this is another deck, on which are the cabins of the officers and the steering apparatus. The appearance of such a structure is more like that of a house than a boat. The one we were in, the Panaloya, draws only three feet of water, when laden with 400 passengers and twenty tons of cargo. * " There is sorrow on the sea ; it cannot be qiiiet." — Jeremiah xlix. 23. CHAPTER IV. The Lake of Nicaragua — Onietepec — Becalmed on the Lake — White Cygnets — Reach San Ubaldo — Ride across the Plains— Vegeta- tion of the Plains — Armadillo Savannahs — Jicara Trees— Jicara Bowls — Origin of Gkrard-shaped Pottery — Coyotes — Mule-breed- ing— Reach Acoyapo — Festa — Cross High Range — Esquipula — The Rio Mice — Supposed Statues on its banks — Pital — Cultivation of Maize — Its use from the earliest times in America — Separa- tion of the Maize-eating from the Mandioca-eating Indigenes of America — Tortillas — Sugar-making — Enter the Forest of the Atlantic Slope — Vegetation of the Forest — Muddy Roads — Arrive at Santo Domingo. As daylight broke next morning, I was up, anxious to see the great lake about which I had heard so much. To the north-west a great sheet of quiet water extended as far as the eye could reach, with islands here and there, and — the central figure in every view of the lake — the great conical peak of Onietepec towered up, 5,050 feet above the sea, and 4,922 feet above the surface of the lake. To the left, in the dim distance, were the cloud- capped mountains of Costa Rica ; to the right, nearer at hand, low hills and ranges covered with dark forests. The lake is too large to be called beautiful, and its vast extent and the mere glimpses of its limits and cloud- capped peaks appeal to the imagination rather than to the eye. At this end of the lake the water is shallow, probably filled up by the mud brought down by the Rio Frio. 44 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. IV. We had still a voyage of sixty miles before us up the lake, and this was to be accomplished not by paddling, but by sailing ; so we now rigged two light masts, and soon after seyen o'clock sailed slowly away from San Carlos before a light breeze, which in an hour's time freshened and carried us along at the rate of about six miles an hour. The sun rose higher and higher ; the day waxed hotter and hotter. About noon the wind failed us again, and the sun right overhead, in a clear piti- less sky, scorched us with its rays, while our boat lay like a log upon the water, the pitch melting in the seams with the heat. The surface of the lake was motionless, except a gentle heaving. We were almost broiled with the stifling heat, but at last saw a ripple on the water coming up from the north-east, some parts bristling with pointed flecks ; soon the breeze reached us, and our torment was over ; our sails, no more idly flapping, filled out before the wind ; the canoe dashed through the rising waves; our drooping spirits revived, and there was an opening out of provisions, and life again in the dead. The breeze continued all the afternoon, and at dark we were off the islands of Nancital, having been all day within a few miles of the north-eastern side of the lake, the banks of which are everywhere clothed with dark gloomy-looking forests. One of the islands was a favourite sleeping-place for the white egrets. From all sides they were flying across the lake towards it ; and as night set in, the trees and bushes by the water-side were full of them, looking like great white flowers amongst the dark green foliage. Flocks of muscovy and whistling ducks also flew over to their evening feeding-places. Great masses of a floating plant, shaped like a cabbage, Ch. IV.] ARRIVAL AT SAN UBALDO. 45 were abundant on the lake, and on these the white egrets and other wading birds often alighted. The boat- men told me — and the story is likely enough to be true — that the alligators, floating about like logs, with their eyes above the water, watch these birds, and, moving quietly up until within a few yards of them, sink down belowr the surface, come up underneath them, catch them by the leg, and drag them under water. Besides the alligators, large freshwater sharks appear to be common in the lake. Sometimes, when in shallow water, we saw a pointed billow rapidly moving away from the boat, produced by some large fish below, and I was told it was a shark. After dark the wind failed us ao-ain, and wre got slowly O O K along, but finally reached our port, San Ubaldo, about ten o'clock, and found there an officer of the mining company, living in a small thatched hut, stationed there to send on the machinery and other goods that arrived for the mines. A large tiled store had also just been built bv the owner of the estate there, Don Gresjorio *j O Quadra, under the verandah of which I hung my ham- mock for the night. Mules were waiting at San Ubaldo for us, and early next morning we set off, with our luggage on pack mules. We crossed some rocky low hills, with scanty vegetation, and, after passing the cattle hacienda of San Jose, reached the plains of the same name, about two leagues in width, now dry and dusty, but in the wet season forming a great slough of water and tenacious mud, through which the mules have to wade and plunge. In the midst of these plains there are some rocky knolls, like islands, on which grow spiny cactuses, low leathery-leaved trees, slender, spiny palms, with plum- 46 TEE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. IV. like fruit, prickly acacias, and thorny bromelias. This spiny character of vegetation seems to be charac- teristic of dry rocky places and tracts of country liable to great drought. Probably it is as a protection from herbivorous animals, to prevent them browsing upon the twigs and small branches when herbaceous vegetation is dried up. Small armadillos abound near these rocky knolls, and are said to feed on ants and other insects. We had a long chase after one, which we observed some distance from the rock, over the cracked and dried-up plain : though it could not run very fast, it doubled quickly, and the rough cracked ground made odds in its favour ; but it Avas ultimately secured. Pigeons, brown coloured, of various sizes, from that of a thrush to that of a common dove, were numerous and very tame. One of the smallest species alights and seeks about in the streets of small towns for seeds, like a sparrow, and more bold than that bird, for it is not molested by the children — rather, however, from indolence than from any lack of the element of cruelty in their dispositions. After crossing the plains we rode over undulating hills, here called savannahs, with patches of forest on the rising ground, and small plains on which grows the ternate-leaved jicara (pronounced hickory), a tree about as large as an apple-tree, with fruit of the size, shape, and appearance of a large green orange, but growing on the trunk and branches, not amongst the leaves. The outside of the fruit is a hard thin shell, packed full of seeds in a kind of dry pulp, on 'which are fed fowls, and even horses and cattle in the dry season ; the latter are said sometimes to choke themselves with the fruit, whilst trying to eat it. Of the bruised seeds is also made a cooling drink, much Ch. IV.] FORMS OF IXDIAX POTTERY. 47 used ill Nicaragua. The jicara trees grow apart at equal distances, as if planted by man. The hard thin shell of the fruit, carved in various patterns on the outside, is made into cups and drinking- vessels by the natives, who also cultivate other species of jicara, with round fruits, as large as a man's head, from which the larger drinking-bowls are made. In the smaller jicaras choco- late is always made and served in Central America, and, being rounded at the bottom, little stands are made to set them in ; these are sometimes shaped like egg-cups, sometimes like toy washhand-stands. In making their earthenware vessels, the Indians up to this day follow this natural form, and their water-jars and bowls are made rounded at the bottom, requiring stands to keep them upright. The meals of Montezuma were served on thick cushions or pillows. This was probably on account of the rounded bases of the bowls and dishes used. The gourd forms of bowls probably often originated in the clay having been moulded over gourds which were burnt out in the baking process. It is said that in some of the southern states the kilns in which the ancient pottery was baked have been found, and in some the half-baked ware remained, retaining the rinds of the gourds over which they had been moulded. Afterwards, when the potter learned to make bowls without tbe aid of gourds, he still retained the shape of his ancient pattern. The name, too, like the form, has had a wonderful vitality. It is the " xicalli ' of the ancient Aztecs, changed to " jicara ' by the Spaniards, by which they mean a chocolate-cup ; and even in Italy a modification 48 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Cli. IV. of the same word may be heard, a tea-cup being called a chicchera. On the top of one of the hills we just got a glimpse of a small pack of wolves, or coyotes, as they arc called, from the Aztec coy oil. They are smaller than the European wolf, and are cunning, like a fox, but hunt in packs. They looked down at us from the ridge of the hill for a few moments, then trotted off down the other side. Their howlings may often be heard in the early morning. Cattle, horses, and mules are bred on these plains. Male asses are kept at some of the haciendas. They are not allowed to mix with any of their own kind, and are well fed and in good condition ; but they are only of small size, and the breed of mules might be greatly improved by the introduction of larger asses. The vegetation 011 the plains was rapidly drying up. Many of the trees shed their leaves in the dry season, just as they do with us in autumn. The barrenness of the landscape is relieved in March by several kinds of trees bursting into flower when they have shed their leaves, and presenting great domes of brilliant colour — some pink, others red, blue, yellow, or white, like great single-coloured bouquets. One looked like a gigantic rhododendron, with bunches of large pink flowers. The yellow-flowered ones belong to wild cotton-trees, from the pods of which the natives gather cotton to stuff pillows, &c. About one o'clock we reached rather a large river, and after crossing it came in sight of the town of Acoyapo, one of the principal towns of the pro- vince of Chontales. We stayed and had dinner with Senhor Don Dolores Bermudez, a Nicaraguan gentleman Oil. IV.] COCK-FIGHTING. 49 who had been educated in the States, and spoke English fluently. He very kindly took me over the town, and I always found him ready to give me information respecting the antiquities and natural pro- ducts of the country. Acoyapo and the district around it contains about two thousand inhabitants. The store- keepers, lawyers, and hacienderos are of Spanish and mixed descent. Amongst the lower classes there is much Indian and some negro blood ; but there are many pure Indians scattered through the district, living near the rivers and brooks, and growing patches of maize and beans. In the centre of the town is a large square or plaza, with a stucco-fronted church occupying one side, and the principal stores and houses ranging around the other three sides. A couple of coco-palms grow in front of the church, but do not thrive like those near the sea-coast. It was Saturday, the 22nd of February, when we arrived ; this was a great feast-day, or festa, at Acoyapo, and the town was full of country people, who were amusing themselves with horse-races, cock-fights, and drinking aguardiente. Their mode of cock-fighting is very cruel, as the cocks are armed with long sickle- shaped lancets, tied on to their natural spurs, with which they give each other fearful gashes and wounds. All classes of Mcaraguans are fond of this amuse- ment ; in nearly every house a cock will be found, tied up in a corner by the leg, but treated otherwise like one of the family. The priests are generally great abettors of the practice, which forms the usual amusement of the towns on Sunday afternoons. I have heard many stories of the padres after service hurrying off to the oock-pit with a cock under each arm. Bets arc made 50 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. IV, on every fight, and mucli money is lost and won over the sport. Like most of the Nicaraguan towns, Acoyapo appears to have been an Indian city before the Spanish con- quest. The name is Indian, and in the plaza Senor Ber- mudez pointed out to me some flat bared rock surfaces, on which were engraved circles and various straight and curved characters, covering the whole face of the rock. Some rude portions of stone statues that have been found in the neighbourhood are also preserved in the town. The Spaniards called the town San Sebastian ; but the more ancient name is likely to prevail, notwith- standing that in all official documents the Spanish one is used. Acoyapo is a grazing district, and there are some large cattle haciendas, especially towards the lake. The town suffers from fever owing to the neighbouring swamp. Much of the land around is very fertile ; but little of it is cultivated, as the people are indolent, and content if they make a bare livelihood. We left Acoyapo about three o'clock : our road lay up the river, which we crossed three times. Excepting near the river, the country was very thinly timbered ; and it was pleasant, after riding across the open plains, exposed to the hot rays of the sun, to reach the shady banks of the stream, by which grew many high thick-foliaged trees, with lianas hang- ing from them, and broinelias, orchids, ferns, and many other epiphytes perched on their branches. At these spots, too, were various beautiful birds, amongst which the Sisitote, a fine black and orange songster, and a trogon (Trogon melanocephalus, Gould), were the most conspicuous. We reached and crossed a high range, from the Ch. IV.] DIFFICULT MARCH. 5i summit of which we had a splendid view : behind, over the plains and savannahs we had crossed, to the great lake, with its islands and peaked hills ; and beyond the dark dim mountains of Costa Hica, amongst which dwell the Indians of the Rio Frio and other little-known tribes. Before us were spread out well-grassed savannahs, thickly timbered, excepting where dark winding lines of trees or light green thickets of bamboos marked the course of rivers or mountain brooks. Here and there were sparingly dotted thatched huts, in which dwelt the owners of the cattle, mules, and horses feed- ing on the meadows. Far in the distance the view was bounded by a line of dark, nearly black-looking forest, which, there commencing, extends unbroken to the Atlantic. Near its edge, a seven-peaked range marked the neighbourhood of Libertad — the beginning of the gold-mining district. Descending the slope of the range, we found the savannahs on its eastern side much more moist than those to the westward of it; and as we proceeded, the humidity of the ground increased, and the crossings of some of the valleys and swamps were difficult for the mules. The dry season had set in, and these places were rapidly drying up ; but in many it had just reached that stage when the mud was most tena- cious ; at one very bad crossing, called an " estero," my mule fell, with my leg underneath him, pinning me in the mud. The poor beast was exhausted, and would not move. Night had set in — it was quite dark, and I had lagged some distance behind my companions : fortu- nately they heard my shouts, and, soon returning, extricated me from my awkward predicament. With- out further mishap we reached Esquipula, a village E 2 52 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. IV. inhabited mostly by half-breeds, at about eight o'clock, and securing our hammocks for the night in a small thatched house belonging to the mining company, who kept many of their draught bullocks at this place on account of the excellent pasture around. The village of Esquipula is built near the river Mico, which, rising in the forest- clad ranges to the eastward, runs for several miles through the savannahs, then again enters the forest and flows into the Atlantic at Blewfields, a broad and deep river. This river must have had at one time a large Indian population, dwelling in settled towais near its banks. Their burial-places, marked with great heaps of stones, are frequent, and pieces of pottery, broken stone statues and pedestals are often met with. ISTear Esquipula there are some artificial-looking mounds, with great stones set round them ; in fact, this and another village, a few miles to the south, called San Tomas, are, I believe, both built on the sites of old Indian towns. The Indians of the Rio Mico gave the Spaniards some trouble on their first settlement of the country. About two leagues from Acoyapo, the site of a small town was pointed out to me, now covered with low trees and brushwood. Here the Spaniards were attacked in the night-time by the Rio Mico Indians, and all of them killed, excepting the young women, who were carried off into captivity, and the place has ever since lain desolate. Many extravagant stories have been told of the great statues that are said to have been seen on the banks of the Mico, much lower down the river than where we crossed it ; but M. Etienne, of Libcrtad, wrho descended it to Blewfields, and some Ulleros of San Ch. IV.] SAVANNAHS AND FOREST. 53 Tomas, who had frequently been down it after Indian rubber, assured me that the reported statues were merely rude carvings of faces and animals on the rocks. They appear to be similar to what are found on many rivers running into the Caribbean Sea, and to those which were examined by Schomburgk on the rocks of the Orinoco and Essequibo ; as others like them, of undoubted Carib workmanship, have been found in the Virgin Islands, it is possible that they are all the work of that once-powerful race, and not of the settled aori- •»- ' O cultural and statue-making Indians of the western part of the continent. Wo started from Esquipula early next morning, and crossed low thinly-timbered hills and savannahs to Pital, a scattered settlement of many small thatched houses, close to the borders of the great forest, on the edge of which were clearings made for growing maize, which is cultivated entirely on burnt forest land. At some parts they had already commenced cutting down trees for fresh clearings ; these would be burnt in April, and the maize sown the following month, in the usual primitive way, just as it was sown in Mexico before and at the Spanish conquest. In commencing a clearing, the brushwood is first cut close to the ground, as it would be difficult to do so after the large trees are felled. The big timber is then cut down, and in April it is set fire to. All the small wood and leaves burn well ; but most of the large trunks are left, and many of the branches. Most of the latter are cut up to form a fence round the clearing, this at Pital and Esquipula being made very close and high to keep out deer. In May, the maize is sown ; the sower makes little holes 54 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. IV. with a pointed stick, a few feet apart, into each of which he drops two or three grains, and covers them with his foot. In a few days the green leaves shoot up, and grow very quickly. Numerous wild plants also spring up, and in June these are weeded out ; the success of the crop greatly depending upon the thoroughness with which this is done. In July each plant has pro- duced two or three ears ; but before the grain is set these are pulled off, excepting one, as if more arc left they do not mature well. The young ears are boiled whole, and make a tender and much-esteemed vegetable." They arc called at this stage " chilote" from the Aztec xilotl ; and the ancient Mexicans in their eighth month, which began on the 16th July, made a great festival, called the feast of Xilonen. The poor Indians now have often reason to rejoice when this stage is reached, as their stores of corn are generally exhausted before then, and the " chilote " is the first fruits of the new crop. In the beginning of August the grains are fully formed, though still tender and white ; and it is eaten as green corn, now called " elotr." In Sep- tember the maize is ripe, and is gathered when dry, and stowed awav, generally over the rooms of the */ ' O *< natives. A second crop is often sown in December. Maize is very prolific, bearing a hundred fold, and ripening in April. From the most ancient times, maize has been the principal food of the inhabitants of the western side of tropical America. On the coast of Peru, Darwin found heads of it,* along with eighteen recent species of marine shells, in a raised beach eighty-five feet * " Geological Observations in South America, 1846," p. 49 ; and " .Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. i. p. 320. €h. IV.] MAIZE AND MAXDIOCA EATERS. 55 above the level of the sea ; and in the same country it has been found in tombs apparently more ancient than ihe times of the Incas.* In Mexico it was known from the earliest times of which we have any record, in the «> picture writings of the Toltecs ; and that ancient people carried it with them in all their wanderings. In Central America the stone grinders, with which they bruised it down, are almost invariably found in the ancient graves, having been buried with the ashes of the dead, as an indispensable article for their outfit to another world. When Florida and Louisiana were first dis- covered, the native Indian tribes all cultivated maize as their staple food ; and throughout Yucatan, Mexico, and all the western side of Central America, and through Peru to Chili, it was, and still is, the main sustenance of the Indians. The people that cultivated it were all more or less advanced in civilization ; they were settled in towns ; their traders travelled from one country to another with their wares ; they were of a docile and tractable dis- position, easily frightened into submission. It is likely that these maize-eating peoples belonged to closely affi- liated races. In. the West India Islands they occupied most of Cuba and Hayti ; but from Porto Rico south- wards the islands were peopled by the warlike Caribs, who harassed the more civilised tribes to the north. From Cape Gracias a Dios southward, the eastern coast of America was peopled on its first discovery by much ruder tribes, who did not grow maize, but made bread from the roots of the mandioca (Manihot aipim) ; and still in British Guiana, on the Lower Amazon, and in north-eastern Brazil, farina made from the roots of the * Yon Tschudi, " Travels in Peru," English edition, p. 177. 56 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. IV. mandioca is the staple food. Maize lias been introduced by the Portuguese, but it has no native name, and is used mostly for feeding cattle and fowls, scarcely at all for the food of the people. This fundamental difference in the food of the indigenes points to a very early separa- tion between the peoples. In the "West Indian Islands, Cuba and Hayti seem to have been peopled from Yucatan, and Florida, Porto Eico, and all the islands to the southwards, from Venezuela. In Central America, the bread made from the maize is prepared at the present day exactly as it was in ancient Mexico. The grain is first of all boiled along with wood ashes or a little lime : the alkali loosens the outer skin of the grain, and this is rubbed off with the hands in running water, a little of it at a time, placed upon a slightly concave stone, called a mctlatc, from, the Aztec metlatl, on which it is rubbed with another stone shaped like a rolling-pin. A little water is thrown on it as it is bruised, and it is thus formed into paste. A ball of the paste is taken and flattened out between the hands into a cake about ten inches diameter and three- sixteenths of an inch thick, which is baked on a slightly concave earthenware pan. The cakes so made are called tortillas, and are very nutritious. When travelling,. I preferred them myself to bread made from wheaten flour. When well made and eaten warm, they are very palatable. There are a few small sugar plantations near Pital. The juice is pressed out of the canes by rude wooden rollers set upright in threes, the centre one driving the one on each side of it by projecting cogs. The whole are set in motion by oxen travelling round the same as- Ch. IV.] THE GREAT FOREST. 57 in a thrashing-mill. The ungrcascd axles of the rollers, squeaking and screeching like a score of tormented pigs, generally inform the traveller of their vicinity long before he reaches them. The juice is boiled, and an impure sugar made from it. I do not think that sugar-cane was known to the ancient inhabitants of this country : it is not mentioned by the historians of the conquest of Mexico and Peru, nor has it, like maize and cacao, any native name. As soon as we passed Pital we entered the great forest, the black margin of which we had seen for many miles, that extends from this point to the Atlantic. At first the road lay through small trees and brushwood, a second growth that had sprung up where the original forest had been cut for maize plantations ; but after passing a brook bordered by numerous plants of i\\e pita, from which a fine fibre is obtained, and which gives its name to Pital, we entered the primeval forest. On each side of the road great trees towered up, carrying their crowns out of sight amongst a canopy of foliage, winding round everything, and with lianas hanging from nearly every bough, and passing from tree to tree, entan- gling the giants in a great network of coiling cables, like another Samson, the simile being strengthened by the fact that many of the trees are really strangled in the winding folds. Sometimes a tree appears covered with beautiful flowers, which do not belong to it, but to one of the lianas that twines through its branches and sends down great ropes like stems to the ground. Climbing ferns and vanilla cling to the trunks, and a thousand epiphytes perch themselves on the branches. Amongst these are large arums that send down aerial roots, tough 58 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Cli. IV. and strong, and universally used instead of cordage by the natives. Amongst the undergrowth several small species of palms, varying in height from two to fifteen feet, are common ; and now and then magnificent tree ferns, sending off their feathery crowns twenty feet from the ground, de- liaht the sisjlit with their Graceful elegance. Great broad- CO O O leaved heliconia3, leathery melastoma3, and succulent- •stemmed, lop-sided leaved, and flesh-coloured begonias are abundant, and typical of tropical American forests ; but not less so are the cecropia trees, with their white j. ' stems and large palmatcd leaves standing up like great candelabra. Sometimes the ground is carpeted with large flowers, yellow, pink, or white, that have fallen from some invisible tree-top above, or the air is filled with a delicious perfume, the source of which one seeks around in vain, for the flowers that cause it are far overhead out of sight, lost in the great overshadowing crown of verdure. Numerous babbling brooks intersect the forest, with moss-covered stones and fern-clad nooks. One's thoughts are led away to the green dells in English denes, but are soon recalled ; for the sparkling pools are the favourite haunts of the fairy humming-birds ; like an arrow, one will dart up the brook, and poised on wings moving with almost invisible velocity, clothed in purple* golden, or emerald glory, hang suspended in the air; it is seen gazing with startled look at the intruder, then with a sudden jerk, turning round first one eye, then the other, it disappears like a flash of light. Unlike the plains and savannahs we crossed yesterday, where the ground was parched up in the dry season, the Atlantic forest, bathed in the rains distilled from the north- east trades, is ever verdant. Perennial moisture Ch. IV.] ROAD THROUGH THE FOREST. 50 reigns in the soil, perennial summer in the air, and vegetation luxuriates in ceaseless activity and verdure all o «/ the year round. Unknown are the autumn tint?, the bright browns and yellows of English woods, much less the crimsons, purples, and yellows of Canada, where the dying foliage rivals, nay, excels the expiring dolphin in. splendour. Unknown the cold sleep of winter ; unknown the lovely awakening of vegetation at the first gentle touch of spring. A ceaseless round of ever- active life weaves the forest scenery of the tropics into one mono- tonous whole, of which the component parts exhibit in detail untold variety and .beauty. To the genial influence of ever-present moisture and heat we must ascribe the infinite variety of the trees of these forests. They do not grow in clusters or masses of single species, like our oaks, beeches, and firs, but every tree is different from its neighbour, and they crowd upon each other in unsocial rivalry, each trying to overtop the other. Therefore we see the great straight trunks rising a hundred feet without a branch, and carrying their domes of foliage directly up to where the balmy breezes blow and the sun's rays quicken. Lianas hurry up to the light and sunshine, and innumerable epiphytes perch themselves high upon the branches. The road through the forest was very bad, the mud O J ' deep and tenacious, the hills steep and slippery, and the mules had to struggle and plunge along through from two to three feet of sticky clay. One part, named the Nispral, was especially steep and difficult to descend, the road being worn into great ruts. TV~e crossed the ranges and brooks nearly at right angles, and were always as- cending or descending. About two we reached a 60 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Cli. IV. clearing and liacienda, belonging to an enterprising German, named Melzer, near a brook called Las Lajas, who was cultivating plantains and vegetables, and had also commenced brick and tile making, besides planting- some thousands of coffee trees. His large clearings were a pleasant change from the forest through which we had been toiling, and we stayed a few minutes at his house. After passing over another league of forest- covered ranges, we reached Pavon, one of the mines of the Chontales Company, and passing the Javali mine soon arrived at Santo Domingo, the head- quarters of the gold-mining company whose operations I had come out to superintend. CHAPTER V. Geographical position of Santo Domingo—Physical Geography— The Inhabitants — Mixed Races — Xegroes and Indians compared — • Women — Establishment of the Chontales Gold Mining Company — My House and Garden — Fruits — Plantains and Bananas — Probably not indigenous to America— Propagated from Shoots — Do not generally mature their Seeds — Fig-trees — Granadillos and Papaws — Vegetables — Dependence of Flowers on Insects for their fertilization — Insect Plagues — Leaf-cutting Ants— Their method of defoliating Trees — Their Nests — Some Trees are not touched by the Ants — Foreign Trees are very subject to their attack — Method of destroying the Ants — Migration of the Ants from a Xest attacked — Corrosive Sublimate causes a sort of Madness amongst them — Indian plan of preventing their as- cending young Trees — Leaf-cutting Ants are fungus growers and eaters — The Sagacity of the Ants. THE gold-mining village of Santo Domingo is situ- o o o o ated in the province of Chontales, Nicaragua, in lat. 12° 16' N. and long. 84° 59' "W., nearly midway between the Atlantic and the Pacific, where Central America begins to widen out northward of the narrow isthmus of Panama and Costa Rica. It is in the midst of the great forest that covers most of the Atlantic slope of Central America, and which continues unbroken from where we had entered it, at Pital, eastward to the Atlantic ; west- ward it terminates in a sinuous margin about seven miles from the village, and there commence the lightly tim- bered and grassy plains and savannahs stretching to the 62 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. V. Lake of Nicaragua. The surface of the land in the forest region forms a succession of ranges and steep valleys, covered with magnificent timber and much undergrowth. Santo Domingo lies about 2000 feet above the level of the sea, and the hills around it rise from 500 to 1000 feet higher. It is built in the bend of a small stream, the head waters of a branch of the Blew- fields river, on a level, low piece of ground, with the brook winding almost round it, and, beyond that, encircled by an amphitheatre of low hills in the hollow of which it lies. The road to the mines runs through it, and forms the main street, having on each side thatched stores and irregularly built houses. The inhabitants, about three hundred in number, are entirely dependent on the mines around, there being no cultivation or any other employ- ment in the immediate neighbourhood. The people are of a mixed descent, in which Indian blood predominates,, then Spanish with a slight admixture of the Negro ele- ment, whilst amongst the rising generation many fair- haired children can claim paternity amongst the numerous German and English workmen that have been employed at the mines. The storekeepers form the aristocracy of the village. They are indolent ; lounging about, or lying smoking in their hammocks the greater part of the day, but generally civil and polite. They are particular in their dress, and may often be seen in faultless European costume, silk umbrella in hand, in twos or threes, taking a short quiet walk up the valley. The lower class of miners are scantily and badly clothed, especially when they come first to the mines. They are bare-footed, with poor ragged cotton trousers and a thin jacket of the same material. Generally, after being a year or two at the- Ch. V.] NEGROES AND IXDIAXS. 63 mines, they begin to wear better clothing, and may often be seen with a new shirt, to show off which they wear it hanging down outside, like a surtout coat. Amongst these are many pure Indians, short sturdy men, who make the steadiest workmen, patient and industrious, but with little appreciation of the value of money, and spending the whole of their wages at the end of the month, before they resume work. At these times the commandant comes in from the town of Libertad, about nine miles distant, with about half-a-dozen, bare-footed soldiers carrying old muskets on their shoulders, and levies black mail upon the poor patient "Mosas," as they are called, in the shape of a fine for drunkenness. But the "aguardiente," a native-made rum, is nevertheless always kept on hand, being a government monopoly, and ever ready, so that the Mosas may have no excuse to be sober and escape being fined. Even in their drink the poor Indians are not very violent, and get intoxicated with surprising stolidity and quietness. Amongst the half-breeds, especially where the Negro element exists, there are often quarrel- lings and rows, when they slash away at each other with their long knives or " machetes,'' and get ugly cuts, which however heal again quickty. Both the Negroes and Indians are decidedly inferior to the whites in intellect ; but they do not differ so much from the Europeans as they do from each other. The Negro will work hard for a short while on rare occasions, or when compelled by another, but is innately lazy. The Indian is industrious by nature, and works steadily and well for himself; but if compelled to work for another, loses all heart, and pines away and dies. The Negro is their habits, and was successful in checking their ravages ; I shall occupy, therefore, the remainder of this chapter with an account of them. • LEAF-CUTTING ANTS. — Nearly all travellers in tropical America have described the ravages of the leaf-cutting ants (CEcodoma) ; their crowded, well-worn paths through the forests, their ceaseless pertinacity in the spoliation of the trees — more particularly of introduced species — which are left bare and ragged, with the midribs and a few jagged points of the leaves only left. Many a young plantation of orange, mango, and lemon trees has been destroyed by them. Again and again have I been told in Nicaragua, when inquiring why no fruit-trees were grown at particular places, " It is no use planting them ; 72 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. V. the ants eat them up." The first acquaintance a stranger generally makes with them is on encountering their paths on the outskirts of the forest crowded with the ants ; one lot carrying off the pieces of leaves, each piece about the size of a sixpence, and held up vertically between the jaws of the ant; another lot hurrying along in an opposite direction empty handed, but eager to get loaded with their leafy burdens. If he follows this last division, it will lead him to some young trees or shrubs, up which the ants mount ; and where each one, stationing itself on the edge of a leaf, commences to make a circular cut, with its scissor-like jaws, from the edge, its hinder feet being the centre on which it turns. When the piece is nearly cut off, it is still stationed upon it, and it looks as though it would fall to the ground with it; but, on being finally detached, the ant is generally found to have hold of the leaf with one foot, and soon righting itself, and arranging its burden to its satisfaction, it sets off at once on its return. Following it again, it is seen to join a throng of others, each laden like itself, and, without a moment's delay, it hurries along the well-worn path. As it proceeds, other paths, each thronged with busy workers, come in from the sides, until the main road often gets to be seven or eight inches broad, and more thronged than the streets of the city of London. After travelling for some hundreds of yards, often for more than half a mile, the formicarium is reached. It consists of low, wide mounds of brown, clayey-looking earth, above and immediately around which the bushes have been killed by their buds and leaves having been persistently bitten off as they attempted to grow after their first defoliation. Under Irish trees in the Ch.V.] DESTRUCTIVENESS OF THE AXIS. 73 thick forest the ants do not make their nests, because, I believe, the ventilation of their underground galleries, about which they are very particular, would be interfered with, and perhaps to avoid the drip from the trees. It is on the outskirts of the forest, or around clearings, or near wide roads that let in the sun, that these forrni- cariums are generally found. JSTumerous round tunnels, varying from half an inch to seven or eight inches in diameter, lead down through the mounds of earth ; and many more, from some distance around, also lead under- neath them. At some of the holes on the mounds ants will be seen busily at work, bringing up little pellets of earth from below, and casting them down on the ever- increasing mounds, so that its surface is nearly always fresh and new-looking. Standing near the mounds, one sees from every point of the compass ant-paths leading to them, all thronged with the busy workers carrying their leafy burdens. As far as the eye can distinguish their tiny forms, troops upon troops of leaves are moving up towards the central point, and disappearing down the numerous tunnelled passages. The outgoing, empty-handed hosts are partly concealed amongst the bulky burdens of the incomers, and can only be distinguished by looking closely amongst them. The ceaseless, toiling hosts impress one with, their power, and one asks — What forests can stand before such invaders ? How is it that vegetation is not eaten off the face of the earth ? Surely nowhere but in the tropics, where the recuperative powers of nature are immense and ever active, could such devastation be withstood. Further acquaintance with the subject will teach the 74 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. V. inquirer that, just as many insects are preserved by being distasteful to insectivorous birds, so very many of the forest trees are protected from the ravages of the ants by their leaves either being distasteful to them, or un- fitted for the purpose for which they are required, whilst some have special means of defence against their attacks. ]None of the indigenous trees appear so suitable for them as the introduced ones. Through long ages the trees and the ants of tropical America have been modified to- gether. Varieties of plants that arose unsuitable for the ants have had an immense advantage over others that were more suitable ; and thus through time every indi- genous tree that has survived in the great struggle has done so because it has had originally, or has acquired, some protection against the great destroyer. The leaf- cutting ants are confined to tropical America ; and we can easily understand that trees and vegetables introduced from foreign lands where these ants are unknown could not have acquired, excepting accidentally, and without any reference to the ants, any protection against their attacks, and now they are most eagerly sought by them. Amongst introduced trees, some species of even the same genus are more acceptable than others. Thus, in the orange tribe, the lime (Citrus lemonum) is less liked than the other species ; it is the only one that I ever found growing really wild in Central America : and I have sometimes thought that even in the short time since the lime was first introduced, about three hundred years ago, a wild variety may have arisen, less subject to the attacks of the ants than the cultivated variety ; for in many parts I saw them growing wild, and apparently not touched. The orange (Citrus aurantium) and the Ch. V.] NESTS OF THE LEAF-CUTTERS. 75 citron (Citrus medicus), on the other hand, are only found where they have been planted and protected by man ; and, were he to give up their cultivation, the only species that would ultimately withstand the attacks of the ants, and obtain a permanent footing in Central America, would be the lime. The reason why the lime is not so subject to the attacks of the ants is unknown ; and the fact that it is so is another instance of how little we know why one species of a particular genus should prevail over another nearly similar form. A little more or less acridity, or a slight chemical difference in the composition of the tissues of a leaf, so small that it is inappreciable to our senses, may be sufficient to ensure the preservation or the destruction of a species through- out an entire continent. The ravages of this ant are so great that it may not be without interest for me to enter upon some details respecting the means I took to protect my own garden against their attacks, especially as the continual warfare I waged against them for more than four years made me acquainted with much of their wonderful economy. In June, 1859, very soon after the formation of my garden, the leaf-cutting ants came down upon it, and at once commenced denuding the young bananas, orange and mango trees of their leaves. I followed up the paths of the invading hosts to their nest, which was about one hundred yards distant, close to the edge of the forest. The nest was not a very large one, the low mound of earth covering it being about four yards in diameter. At first I tried to stop the holes up, but fresh ones were immediately opened out : I then dug down below the mound, and laid bare the chambers beneath, filled with 76 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Cli. V. ant-food and young ants in every stage of growth ; but I soon found that the underground ramifications extended so far, and to so great a depth, whilst the ants were con- tinually at work making fresh excavations, that it would be an immense task to eradicate them by such means ; and notwithstanding all the digging I had done the first day, I found them as busily at work as ever at my garden, which they were rapidly defoliating. At this stage, our medical officer, Dr. J. H. Simpson,* came to my assistance, and suggested the pouring carbolic acid, mixed with water, down their burrows. The suggestion proved a most valuable one. We had a quantity of common brown carbolic acid, about a pint of which I mixed with four buckets of water, and, after stirring it well about, poured it down the burrows ; I could hear it rumbling down to the lowest depths of the formicarium four or five feet from the surface. The effect was all that I could have wished : the marauding parties were at once drawn off from my garden to meet the new danger at home. The whole formicarium was disorganised. Big fellows came stalking up from the cavernous regions below, only to descend again in the utmost perplexity. Next day, I found them busily employed bringing up the ant- food from the old burrows, and carrying it to a new one a few yards distant ; and here I first noticed a wonderful instance of their reasoning powers. Between the old burrows and the new one was a steep slope. * This gentleman, beloved by all who knew him, of rare talent, and with every prospect of a prosperous career before him, died at Jamaica from hydrophobia, between two and three months after being bitten by a small dog that had not itself shown any symptoms .of that disease. Ch. V.] METHOD OF ERADICATING AXTS. 77 Instead of descending this with their burdens, they cast them down on the top of the slope, whence they rolled down to the bottom, where another relay of labourers picked them up and carried them to the new burrow. It was amusing to watch the ants hurrying out with bundles of food, dropping them over the slope, and rushing back immediately for more. They also brought out great numbers of dead ants that the fumes of the carbolic acid had killed. A few clays afterwards, when I visited the locality again, I found both the old burrows and the new one entirely deserted, and I thought they had died off ; but subsequent events convinced me that the survivors had only moved away to a greater distance. It was fully twelve months before my garden was again invaded. I had then a number of rose-trees and also cabbages grow- ing, which the ants seemed to prefer to everything else. The rose-trees were soon defoliated, and great havoc was made amongst the cabbages. I followed them to their nest, and found it about two hundred yards from the one of the year before. I poured down the burrows, as before, several buckets of water with carbolic acid. The water is required to carry the acid down to the lowest chambers. The ants, as before, were at once withdrawn from my garden ; and two days afterwards, on visiting the place, I found all the survivors at work on one- track that led directly to the old nest of the year before, where they were busily employed making fresh excava- tions. Many were bringing along pieces of the ant- food from the old to the new nests ; others carried the undeveloped white pupaa and larvae. It was a wholesale and entire migration ; and the next day the formicarium down which I had last poured the carbolic acid was 78 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch, V. entirely deserted, I afterwards found that when much disturbed, and many of the ants destroyed, the survivors migrate to a new locality. I do not doubt that some of the leading minds in this formicarium recollected the nest of the year before, and directed the migration to it. Don Francisco Yelasquez informed me, in 1870, that he had a powder which made the ants mad, so that they bit and destroyed each other. He gave me a little of it, and it proved to be corrosive sublimate. I made several trials of it, and found it most efficacious in turning a large column of the ants. A little of it sprinkled across one of their paths in dry weather has a most surprising effect. As soon as one of the ants touches the white powder, it commences to run about wildly, and to attack any other ant it comes across. In a couple of hours, round balls of the ants will be found all biting each other ; and numerous individuals will be seen bitten completely in two, whilst others have lost some of their legs or antennae. News of the commotion is carried to the formi- carium, and huge fellows, measuring three-quarters of an inch in length, that only come out of the nest during a migration or an attack on the nest or one of the working- columns, are seen stalking down with a determined air, as if they would soon right matters. As soon, however, as they have touched the sublimate, all their stateliness leaves them : they rush about ; their legs are seized hold of by some of the smaller ants already affected by the poison ; and they themselves begin to bite, and in short time become the centre of fresh balls of rabid ants. The sublimate can only be used effectively in dry weather. At Colon I found the Americans using coal tar, which they spread across their paths when any of €h. V.] AXIS GROWERS OF MUSHROOMS. 79 them led to their gardens. I was also told that the Indians prevent them from ascending young trees by tying thick wisps of grass, with the sharp points downwards, round the stems. The ants cannot pass through the wisp, and do not find out how to surmount it, getting confused amongst the numberless blades, all leading downwards. I mention these different plans of meeting and frustrating the attacks of the ants at some length, as they are one of the greatest scourges of tropical America, and it has been too readily supposed that their attacks cannot be warded off. I myself was enabled, by using some of the means mentioned above, to cultivate successfully trees and vegetables of which the ants were extremely fond. Notwithstanding that these ants are so common throughout tropical America, and have excited the at- tention of nearly every traveller, there still remains much doubt as to the use to which the leaves are put. Some naturalists have supposed that they use them directly as food ; others, that they roof their underground nests with them. I believe the real use they make of them is as a manure, on which grows a minute species of fungus, on which they feed ; — that they are, in reality, mushroom growers and eaters. This explanation is so extraordinary and unexpected, that I may be per- mitted to enter somewhat at length on the facts that led me to adopt it. When I first began my warfare against the ants that attacked my garden, I dug down deeply into some of their nests. In our mining opera- tions we also, on two occasions, carried our excavations from below up through very large formicariums, so that all their underground workings were exposed to obser- vation. I found their nests below to consist of numerous 80 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA, [Ch. V. rounded chambers, about as large as a man's head, connected together by tunnelled passages leading from one chamber to another. Notwithstanding that many NEST OF LEAF-CUTTING ANT. columns of the ants were continually carrying in the cut leaves, I could never find any quantity of these in the burrows, and it was evident that they were used up in some way immediately they were brought in. The chambers were always about three parts filled with a speckled brown, flocculent, spongy-looking mass of a light and loosely connected substance. Throughout these masses were numerous ants belonging to the smallest division of the workers, and which do not engage in leaf- carrying. Along with them were pupae and larva?, not gathered together, but dispersed, apparently irregularly, throughout the flocculent mass. This mass, which I have called the ant-food, proved, on examination, to be composed of minutely subdivided pieces of leaves, withered to a brown colour, and overgrown and lightly connected together by a minute white fungus that rami- fied in every direction throughout it. I not only found this fungus in every chamber I opened, but also in the Ch. Y.] FOOD OF THE ANTS. 81 chambers of the nest of a distinct species that generally conies out only in the night-time, and often enters the house and carries off various farinaceous substances, and does not make mounds above its nests, but long, winding passages, terminating in chambers similar to the common species, and always, like them, three parts filled with flocculent masses of fungus-covered vegetable matter, amongst which are the ant nurses and immature ants. "When a nest is disturbed, and the masses of ant-food spread about, the ants are in great concern to carry every morsel of it under shelter again ; and sometimes, when I had dug into a nest, I found the next day all the earth thrown out filled with little pits that the ants had dug into it to get out the covered up food. When they migrate from one part to another, they also carry with them all the ant -food from their old habitations. That they do not eat the leaves themselves I convinced my- self ; for I found near the tenanted chambers deserted ones filled with the refuse particles of leaves that had been exhausted as manure for the fungus, and were now left, and served as food for larvse of Staphylinidce and other beetles. These ants do not confine themselves to leaves, but also carry off any vegetable substance that they find suitable for growing the fungus on. They are very partial to the inside white rind of oranges, and I have also seen them cutting up and carrying off the flowers of certain shrubs, the leaves of which they neglected. They are very particular about the ventilation of their underground chambers, and have numerous holes leading up to the surface from them. These they open out or close up, apparently to keep up a regular degree of temperature 6 82 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. V. below. The great care they take that the pieces of leaves they carry into the nest should be neither too dry nor too damp, is also consistent with the idea that the object is the growth of a fungus that requires particular conditions of temperature and moisture to ensure its vigorous growth. If a sudden shower should come on, the ants do not carry the wet pieces into the burrows, but throw them down near the entrances. Should the weather clear up again, these pieces are picked up when nearly dried, and taken inside ; should the rain, however, continue, they get sodden down into the ground, and are left there. On the contrary, in dry and hot weather, when the leaves would get dried up before they could be convej^ed to the nest, the ants, when in exposed situa- tions, do not go out at all during the hot hours, but bring in their leafy burdens in the cool of the day and during the night. As soon as the pieces of leaves are carried in they must be cut up by the small class of workers into little pieces. I have never seen the smallest class of ants carrying in leaves ; their duties appear to be inside, cutting them up into smaller fragments, and nursing the immature ants. I have, however, seen them running out along the paths with the others ; but instead of helping to carry in the burdens, they climb on the top of the pieces which are being carried along by the middle- sized workers, and so get a ride home again. It is very probable that they take a run out merely for air and exercise. The largest class of what are called workers are, I believe, the directors and protectors of the others. They are never seen out of the nest, excepting on particular occasions, such as the migrations of the ants, and when one of the working columns or nests is attacked ; they Ch. V.] REASONING POWERS OF AXTS. 83 then come stalking up, and attack the enemy with their strong jaws. Sometimes, when digging into the burrows, one of these giants has unperceived climbed up my dress, and the first intimation of his presence has been the burying of his jaws in my neck, from which he would not fail to draw the blood. The stately observant way in which they stalk about, and their great size, compared with the others, always impressed me with the idea that in their bulky heads lay the brains that directed the community in their various duties. Many of their actions, such as that I have mentioned of two relays of •f workmen carrying out the ant food, can scarcely be blind instinct. Some of the ants make mistakes, and carry in unsuitable leaves. Thus grass is always rejected by them, but I have seen some ants, perhaps young ones, carrying leaves of grass ; but after a while these pieces are always brought out again and thrown away. I can imagine a young ant getting a severe ear- wigging from one of the major-domos for its stupidity. I shall conclude this long account of the leaf-cutting ants with one more instance of their reasoning powers. A nest w^as made near one of our tramways, and to get to the trees the ants had to cross the rails, over which the waggons were continually passing and repassing. Every time they came along a number of ants were crushed to death. They persevered in crossing for some time, but at last set to work and tunnelled underneath each rail. One day, when the waggons were not running, I stopped up the tunnels with stones ; but although great numbers carrying leaves were thus cut off from the nest, they would not cross the rails, but set to work making fresh tunnels underneath them. Apparently an order G 2 84 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. V. had gone forth, or a general understanding heen come to, that the rails were not to be crossed. These ants do not appear to have many enemies, though I sometimes found holes burrowed into their nests, apparently by the small armadillo. I once saw a minute parasitic fly hovering over a column of ants, near a nest, and every now and then darting down and attaching an egg to one entering. Large, horned beetles (Coelosis bifoba) and a species of Staphylinus are found in the nests, but probably their lame live on the rotten leaves, after the ants are clone with them. CHAPTEE VI. Configuration of the Ground at Santo Domingo —Excavation of Val- leys— Geology of the District — Decomposition of the Rocks — Gold mining — Auriferous Quartz Veins — Mode of occurrence of the Gold — Lodes richer next the surface than at lower depths- Excavation and reduction of the Ore — Extraction of the Gold— "Mantos" — Origin of Mineral Veins — Their connection with intrusions of Plutonic Rocks. THERE is scarcely any level land around Santo Domingo, but in every direction a succession of hills and valleys. The hills are not isolated ; they run in irregular ranges, having mostly an east and- west direction, but with many modifications in their trend. From the main valleys numerous auxiliary ones cut deeply into the ranges, and bifurcate again and again, like the branches of a tree, forming channels for carrying off the great quantity of water that falls in these rainy forests. The branching valleys, all leading into main ones, and these into the rivers, have been excavated by sub-aerial agency, and almost entirely by the action of running water. It is the system that best effects the drainage of the country, and has been caused by that drainage. The wearing out of valleys near Santo Domingo pro- ceeds more rapidly than in regions where less rain falls, and where the rocks are not so soft and decomposed. Even during the few years I was in Nicaragua there were some modifications of the surface effected ; I saw 8G THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VI. the commencement of new valleys, and the widening and lengthening of others, caused not only by the gradual denudation of the surface, but by landslips, some of which occur every wet season. The rocks of the district are dolerytes, with bands and protrusions of hard greenstones. The decomposition of the dolerytes is very great, and extends from the tops of the hills to a depth, as proved in the mines, of at least two hundred feet. Next the surface they were often as soft as alluvial clay, and might be cut with a spade. This decomposition of the rocks near the surface prevails in many parts of tropical America, and is principally, if not always, confined to the forest regions. It has been ascribed, and probably with reason, to the percolation through the rocks of rain -water charged with a little acid from the decomposing vegetation. If this be so, the great depth to which it has reached tells of the immense antiquity of the forests. Gold-mining at Santo Domingo is confined almost entirely to auriferous quartz lodes, no alluvial deposits having been found that will pay for working. The lodes run east and west, and are nearly perpendicular, some- times dipping a little to the north, sometimes a little to the south, and near the surface, generally turning over towards the face of the hill through which they cut. The trend of the main ranges, also nearly east and west, is probably due to the direction of the outcrops of the lodes which have resisted the action of the elements better than the soft dolerytes. The quartz veins now form the crests of many of the ranges, but are everywhere cut through by the lateral valleys. The beds of doleryte lie at low angles, through which the quartz veins cut Cb. VI.] QUARTZ LODES. 87 nearly vertically, excepting that they are very irregular in thickness, and often branch and send thin offshoots into the enclosing rocks ; they resemble coal seams that haye been turned up on edge, so as to be vertical instead of horizontal. They run for a great distance. Near Santo Domingo they have been traced for two miles in length, and probably they extend much further. They are what are called fissure-veins, owing their origin to cracks or fractures in the rocks that have been filled up with mineral substances through chemical, thermal, aqueous, or Plutonic agencies. In depth, the bottom of fissure- veins has never been reached, and taking into consideration the deep-seated forces required to produce fissures of such great length and regularity, we may safely assume that they run for miles deep into the earth — that their extension vertically is as great as it is hori- zontally. The probability that they extend to immense depths is increased when we reflect that mineral veins occur in parallel groups that run with great regularity for hundreds of miles ; and further by the fact that, in all the changes of the earth's surface, by which deep-seated rocks have been brought up and exposed by denudation, no instance is known of the bottom of a fissure- vein having been brought by such movements within the reach of man. The gold-mines of Santo Domingo are in veins or lodes of auriferous quartz that run parallel to each other, and are so numerous that across a band more than a mile in width one may be found every fifty yards. All that have been worked vary greatly in thickness : sometimes within a hundred yards a lode will thicken out from one to seventeen feet. Their auriferous contents vary still more 88 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Cb. VI. than their width. The rich ore, worth from one to four ounces per ton, occurs in irregular patches and bands very small in comparison with the bulk of the ore stuff, which varies in value from two to seven pennyweights per ton. The average value of all the ore treated by the Chontales Mining Company, up to the end of 1871, has been about seven pennyweights per ton, and during that MACHINERY OF CHONTALES GOLD MINING COMPANY. time small patches have been met with worth one hun- dred ounces of gold per ton. The gold does not occur pure, but is a natural alloy of gold and silver, containing about three parts of the former to one of the latter. Besides this metallic alloy (to which, for brevity, I shall, in the remarks I have to make, give its common designa- Ch. VI.] QUARTZ LODES. 89 tion of gold), the quartz lodes contain sulphate of silver, peroxide of manganese, peroxide of iron, sulphides of iron and copper, and occasionally ores of lead. The quartz is generally very friable, full of drossy cavities, and broken up into innumerable small pieces that are often coloured black by the peroxide of man- ganese. The gold is in minute grains, and generally distributed loose amongst the quartz. Pieces as large as a pin's head are rare, and specimens of quartz showing the gold in it are seldom met with, even in the richest portion of the lode. The fine gold-dust can, however, easily be detected by washing portions of the lode-stuff in a horn. The quartz and clay is washed away, and the gold-dust sinks to the bottom, and is retained in the spoon. This is the usual way in which the lode is tested by the mining agents, and long practice has made them very expert in valuing the ore by the wash in the " spoon. " Although most of the gold occurs loose, amongst the soft portions of the lode, the hard quartz also contains it disseminated in minute grains throughout. These can be obtained in the horn by pounding the quartz to powder and then washing it. One feature in the distribution of gold in the quartz lodes of Santo Domingo led to a most exaggerated opinion of their value when they were first mined by English companies. On the hills, near the outcrops of the lodes, the ore was in some places exceedingly rich. One thousand ounces of gold were obtained from a small patch of ore near the surface of the Consuelo lode, and at Santo Domingo, San Benito, San Antonio, and Javali lodes, very rich ore was also discovered within a 90 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VI. few fathoms of the surface. When, however, these deposits were followed downwards, they invariably got poorer, and at one hundred feet from the surface, no very rich ore has been met with. Below that, when the works are prosecuted still deeper, there does not appear to be any further progressive deterioration in the value of the ore, and it varies in yield from two to seven pennyweights of gold per ton, upon which yield further depth does not seem, to have any effect. The cause of these rich deposits near the surface does not appear to me to be that the lodes originally, before they were exposed by denudation, contained more gold in their upper portions than below, but to be the effect of the decomposition, and wearing down of the higher parts, and the concentration of the gold they contained in the lode below that worn away. We have seen that in the decomposed parts of the lode, the gold exists in loose fine grains. During the wet season water percolates freely from the surface down through the lodes, and the gold set free by the decomposition of the ore at the surface must be carried down into it, so that in the course of ages, during the gradual degradation and wearing away of the surface, there has, I believe, been an accumulation of the loose gold in. the upper parts of the lodes from parts that originally stood much higher, and have now been worn away by the action of the elements. This accumulation of loose gold near the surface of auriferous veins, set at liberty from its matrix by the decomposition of the ore, and concentrated by degrada- tion, is probably the reason of the great richness of many of what are called the caps of quartz veins ; that is, the parts next the existing surface, and has, also, Ch. VI.] QUARTZ LODES. 91 perhaps, originated the belief that auriferous lodes deteriorate in value in depth. I at one time, after having studied the auriferous quartz veins of Australia, advocated this theory which was first insisted upon by Sir R. I. Murchison, but further experience in North Wales, Nova Scotia, Brazil, and Central America, has led me to doubt its correctness, excepting in cases such as we have been considering, where there has been an accumulation of gold in the superficial portions of lode?, since their original formation. Gold is distributed in quartz veins in bands, and patches of richer stone of more or less extent. These richer portions of the lodes, if sunk upon perpendicularly, will be passed through, but so also they would be if followed horizontally, their extent in one direction being as great as it is in the other. The chances of meeting with further patches of rich ore in depth, after one has been passed through, are about the same as they are in driving horizontally, and the frequency therefore with which the auriferous ores are met with along the surface will, as a rule, be an index of their occurrence in depth, if we be careful in distinguishing deposits belonging to the original condi- tion of the lodes, and those due to subsequent con- centration. To do this we must get below the imme- diate surface, and take as our guide the gold occurring in the solid undecomposed quartz, and not the loose grains contained in the fissures and cavities. The lodes of Santo Domingo are worked by means of levels driven from near the bottoms of the valleys that intersect them. When these levels have entered suffi- ciently far into the hills, shafts are driven upwards from them to the surface, and other levels driven sixtv feet 92 TEE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VI. higher than the first. This process is continued until the lode lying ahove the lowest level has been divided off into horizontal bands, each about sixty feet in depth. The quartz is then excavated above the topmost level, and thrown down the shafts to the lowest, where it is received into waggons and conveyed to the reduction works. As both the ore and the enclosing rocks are greatly decomposed and very soft, the whole of the ground has to be securely timbered as the work proceeds. The levels are timbered with "nispera," a wood of great durability and strength, but the excavated portions between them are only temporarily secured with common soft wood, and at the end of every fortnight filled up with clay and barren rock. The mining is entirely executed by native workmen, principally to Sizms SECTION OP GOLD MINE. Diagram stowing method of excavating ore at Saato Domingo Mines. A, Levels ; B, Rise, down which the ore is thrown ; D, Stopes ; C, Stopes refilled with clay and ban-en rock. Mestizos from the border lands of Honduras and Nica- ragua, where they have been engaged in silver mining. They are paid according to the amount of ground exca- vated, and are very industrious when poor ; but when they accumulate a little money, they take fits of idleness and dissipation until it is spent again. Ch. VI.] QUARTZ LODES. 93 The ore is taken down to the reduction works in waggons that run down by gravitation, and are drawn up again by mules. It is then stamped to powder by iron beaters, each of which is lifted by cams, and let fall seventy times per minute. The stamped ore, in the form of fine sand, is then carried by a stream of water over inclined copper plates covered with mercury, with which is mixed a little metallic sodium. Nearly the whole of the free gold is caught by the mercury, for which it has a great affinitv, and accumulates as O «/ ' amalgam on the copper plates, from which it is cleaned off every twelve hours. The sand and water then passes over inclined tables covered with blankets, the fibres of which intercept particles of gold and mercury that have escaped from the first process, and afterwards into a concentrating box, where the coarsest grains of sand and the sulphurets of iron, copper, and silver, are caught, and with the sand from the blankets retreated in arrastres. These arrastres are round troughs, twelve feet in diameter, paved with stones. Four large stones of quartz are dragged round and round in this trough, and grind the coarse sand to fine powder. The gold liberated sinks into the crevices in the stone pave- ment, a little mercury being put into the trough to form it into amalgam. The arrastres and all the amalga- mating apparatus is cleaned up once a month. The amalgam obtained is squeezed through thin dressed skins, and is then of the consistence of stiff putty, and of a silver colour. These balls of amalgam are placed in iron retorts, and the mercury driven off by heat and condensed again in water. These balls of gold so ob- tained are then melted into bars weighing about one 94 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VI. hundred ounces each, and in that state sent to England. At Santo Domingo about two thousand tons of ore are treated monthly, and the whole cost of treatment, in- cluding all charge for mining, carriage, reduction, amal- gamation, and management, is only about eight shillings per ton. The loss of mercury is about twenty pounds for every thousand tons of ore treated ; the smallness of the loss in comparison with that of many other gold- extracting establishments being greatly due to the em- SECTION ACROSS SAN ANTONIO LODE. A, Lode; B, Decomposed doleryte ; C, Surface soil ; D, Quartz rocks in surface soil. ployment of sodium in the amalgamating processes. The loss of mercury usually occurring in amalgamation work is principally caused by its mineralisation, and sodium has such an intense affinity for oxygen and Ch. VI. ] QUARTZ LODES. 95 sulphur, that it reduces the mercury to its metallic form again, and prevents its being carried off in light mineralised flakes and powder. The band of auriferous quartz veins worked at Santo Domingo continues westward for eight miles, as far as the savannahs near Libertad, and has been largely mined in the neighbourhood of that town, and between that point and Santo Domingo. Besides the working of the mines proper, some surface deposits, called by the Spaniards " Mantos," are also worked for gold, espe- cially in the neighbourhood of Libertad. The " Mantos ' consist of broken quartz, covering the faces of the hills in the neighbourhood of some of the lodes. In some places they form a broken but regular stratum over the whole side of a hill, and I was much puzzled at first to account for their origin. I have already mentioned that the lodes near their summit incline over towards the face of the hill through which they cut. In some cases, as in the San Antonio mine, the lode is in parts bent completely round, as shown in the annexed section. This bending over of the lodes is always towards the face of the hill, and is, I think, produced by successive small land slips. It is evident that if carried still further than in the case shown in the diagram, the lode would be brought down over the face of the hill, and the result has, I think, been achieved in some places, and a regular " Mcuito '' produced. I have already stated that small landslips are of frequent occurrence on the sides of the hills. We had several times the entrance to our mines closed by them in the wet season. 96 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VI. Mr. David Forbes,* in his account of the gold of Peru and Bolivia, has advanced the opinion that auriferous quartz veins belong to two different systems, one occur- ring in connection with Granitic, the other with Diorytic intrusive rocks. In later papers he has shown that this occurrence of gold is not confined to South America, but appears to prevail in all the other quarters of the world. f One of the latest writers on the subject, Mr. R. Daintree, in his "Notes on the Geology of Queensland," has shown that the auriferous veinstones in that colony occur in connection with, or in the near vicinity of certain intrusive trap-rocks, and that even some of the trappean dykes themselves are auriferous. J I, myself, several years ago, endeavoured to show that mineral veins in granitic districts occurred in regular sequences, with certain intrusive rocks, as follows : — 1st, Intrusion of main mass of granite ; 2nd, Granitic veins ; 3rd, Elvan dykes ; and, lastly, Mineral veins, cutting through all the other intrusive rocks. § Later observations have led me to conclude that a similar sequence of events characterised the occurrence of auriferous quartz veins in connection with the intrusive rocks, commonly designated Greenstones, in some districts consisting of diabase, as in North Wales, near Dolgelly ; in others of dioryte, as in Santo Domingo ; and in many parts of South America and Australia. In North Wales we have, firstly, an intrusion of diabase, occurring in great mountain masses ; 2ndly, Irregular * Quar. Joum. Geol. Soc. , Vol. xvii. 4* Geological Magazine, September, 18C6. J Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. , Vol. xxviii. p. 308. § See " Geol. Survey of Canada," pp. 141 and 173. Ch. TI.] OEIGIN OF MINERAL VEINS. 97 tortuous dykes of diabase ; 3rdly, Elvan dykes ; and, lastly, auriferous quartz veins. In every region of intrusive plutonic rocks that has been thoroughly explored, a succession of events, culminating in the pro- duction of mineral veins, has beea proved to have taken place,* and we are bound to look upon the origin of such veins as the natural result of the plutonic intrusion ; there is, also, sometimes a complete gradation from veins of perfectly crystallised granite, through others abounding in quartz at the expense of the other con- stituents up to veins filled with pure quartz, as at Porth Just, near Cape Cornwall ; and, again, the same vein will in some parts be filled with felspar ; in others, con- tain irregular masses of quartz, apparently the excess of silica beyond what has been absorbed in the trisilicate compound of felspar, f Granitic, porphyritic, and trap- dykes J also sometimes contain gold and other metals ; and I think the probability is great that quartz veins have been filled in the same manner, — that if dykes and veins of granite have been an igneous injection, so have those of quartz. By an igneous injection, I do not mean that the fused rock owed its fluidity to dry heat. The celebrated researches of Sorby on the microscopical fluid cavities in the quartz of granite and quartz veins, have shown beyond a doubt that the vapour of water was present in comparatively large quantities when the quartz was solidifying. All strata below the surface contain water, and if melted up would still hold it as * " Mineral Veins," p. 1C. f Mr. John Phillips in " Memoirs, Geological Survey of Great Britain," Vol. ii. p. 45. J Sir R I. Murchison, " Siluria," pp. 479, 481, 488, and 500 ; and R. Daiutree, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., vol. xxviii. pp. 308,310. H 98 THE NATUEALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VI. superheated steam ; and M. Angelot has suggested that fused rock under great pressure may dissolve large quantities of the vapour of water, just as liquids dissolve gases. The presence of the vapour of water would cause the liquefaction of quartz at a much lower tempe- rature than would he possible hy heat alone, unaided hy water.* I know that this opinion is contrary to that usually held hy geologists, the theory generally accepted being that mineral veins have been produced by deposits from hot springs ; but during twenty years I have been engaged in auriferous quartz mining in various parts of the world, and nowhere have I met with lodes, the phenomena of which would be explained on this hypothesis. The veinstone is pure quartz con- taining water in microscopical cavities, as in the quartz crystals of granite, but not combined as in the hydrous siliceous scoriae deposited from hot springs. The lodes are not ribboned, but consist of quartz, jointed across from side to side, exactly like trappean dykes. There is often a banded arrangement produced by the repeated re-opening and filling of the same fissure ; but never, in quartz veins, a regular filling up from the sides towards the centre, as in veins produced by deposits from springs. Quartz veins extend sometimes for miles, and it is necessary to suppose on the hydro-thermal theory that they kept open sufficiently long for the gradual deposition of the veinstones, without the soft and shat- tered rocks at their sides falling in, nor yet fragments from above ; although there are many lodes, fully twenty feet in width, filled entirely with quartz and mineral ores, without any included fragments of fallen rocks, * K. C. Sorby, Jour. Geol. Soc. , vol. xiv. Ch. VI.] ORIGIN OF MINERAL VEINS. 99 and nowhere showing any trace of regular deposition on the sides. The gold also found in auriferous lodes is never pure, but forms various alloys of gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, and bismuth ; and no way is known of producing these alloys except by fusion. It is true that mineral veins contain many minerals that could not exist together undecomposed with even a moderate degree of heat ; but it is only here contended that the original filling of the lodes was an igneous in- jection, not that the present arrangement and composi- tion of all the minerals is due to the same action. Since the lodes were first filled, they have been subjected to every variety of hydro-thermal and aqueous influence ; for the cooling of the heated rocks must have been a slow process, and undoubtedly the veins have often been the channels both for the passage of hot water and steam from the interior, and of cold water charged with carbonic acid and carbonate of lime from the surface, and many changes must have taken place. Auriferous quartz veins have resisted these influences better than others, because neither the veinstone nor the metal is easily altered, and such veins therefore form better guides for the study of the origin of mineral lodes than fissures filled with calc spar and ores of the baser metal, all readily dissolved and re- formed by hydro-thermal agencies. Our mineralogical museums are filled with beautiful specimens of crystals of quartz, fiuor spar, and various ores deposited one on the other ; and the student who confines his attention to these is naturally led to believe that he sees before him the process by which mineral veins have been filled. But the miner, working far underground, knows that such crystals are only found in cavities and fissures, and that ii 2 190 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ck. VI. the normal arrangement of the minerals is very different. The deposition of various spars one on the other in cavities is a secondary operation ever now going on, and has nothing necessarily to do with the original filling of the lodes ; indeed, their arrangement is so different that it helps to prove they have been differently formed. It would take a volume to discuss this question in all its bearings, and as I have already entered more fully into it in another place,* I shall only now give a brief resume of the conclusions I have arrived at respecting the origin of mineral veins. 1. Sedimentary strata have been carried down, by movements of the earth's crust, far below the surface, covered with other strata, and subjected to great heat, which, aided by the water contained in the rocks and various chemical reactions, has effected a re-arrangement of the mineral contents of the strata, so that by mole- cular movements the metamorphic crystalline rocks, including interstratified granites and greenstones, have been formed. 2. Carried to greater depths and subjected to more intense heat, the strata have been completely fused, and the liquid or pasty mass, including the contorted strata above it, has formed perfectly crystalline intrusive granites and greenstones. 3. As the heated rocks cooled from their highest parts downwards, cracks or fissures have been formed in them by contraction, and these have been filled from the still fluid mass below. At the beginning these injections have been the same as the first massive intrusive rocks, * « Mineral Veins," by Thomas Belt John Weale, 1SG1. Ch.VL] ORIGIN OF MINERAL VEINS. 101 either granite or greenstone; but as the rocks gradually cooled, the fissures reached greater and greater depths ; and the lighter constituents having been drawn off and exhausted, only the heavier molten silica, mingled with metallic and aqueous vapours, has been left, and with these the last-formed and deepest fissures have been filled. These injections never reached to the surface, — probably never beyond the area of heated rocks ; so that there have been no overflows from them, and they have only been exposed by subsequent great upheaval and de- nudation. 4. Probably the molten matter was injected into the fissures of rocks already greatly heated, and the cooling of these rocks has been prolonged over thousands of years, during which the lodes have been subjected to every degree of heat, from that of fusion to their present normal temperature. During the slow upheaval and denudation of the lodes, they have been subjected to various chemical, hydro-thermal, and aqueous agencies, by which many of their contents have been re- arranged and re-formed, new minerals have been brought in by percolation of water from the surrounding rocks, and possibly some of the original contents have been carried out by mineral springs rising through the lines of fissures which are not completely sealed by the igneous injection, as the contraction of the molten matter in cooling has left cracks and crevices through which water readily passes. 5. Some of the fissures may have been re- opened since they were raised beyond the reach of molten matter, and the new rent may have been filled by hydro-thermal or aqueous agencies, and may contain alloy with, vein- 102 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VI. stones of calcite derived from neighbouring beds of lime- stone, and some minerals derived from a previous igneous injection; and crevices and cavities, called rag/is by the miners, have been filled more or less completely with crystals of fluor spar, quartz, and various ores of metals from true aqueous solutions, or by the action of super- heated steam. 6. By these 'means the signs of the original filling of many mineral lodes, especially those of the baser metals, have been obscured or obliterated ; but in auriferous quartz lodes both the metal and the veinstone have generally resisted all these secondary agencies, and are presented to us much the same as they were first deposited, excepting that the associated minerals have been altered, and in some cases new ones introduced, by the passage of hot springs from below or percolation of water from the surface. CHAPTER VII. Climate of the north-eastern side of Nicaragua — Excursions around Santo Domingo— The Artigua — Corruption of ancient Xaines— Butterflies, Spiders, and Wasps— Humming-birds, Beetles, and Ants— Plants and Trees — Timber — Monkey attacked by Eagle — White-faced Monkey — Anecdotes of a tame one — Curassows and other game Birds— Trogons, Woodpeckers, Motmots, and Toucans. THE climate of Santo Domingo and of the whole O north-eastern side of Nicaragua is a very damp one. The rains set in in May, and continue with occasional intermission until the following January, when the dry season of a little more than three months begins. Even during the short-lived dry season there are occasional rains, so that although the roads dry up, vegetation never does, the ground in the woods is ever moist, and the brooks perennial. In the shady forest, mosquitoes and sand-flies are rather troublesome ; but the large cleared space about the houses of the mining company is almost free from them, and in the beautiful light evenings one can sit under the verandahs undisturbed, watching the play of the moonbeams on the waving silky leaves of the bananas, or the twinkling north star just peeping over the range in front, or " Charlie's Yvrain " in the upper half of its endless circlings. In the opposite direction we can see the beautiful constellations of the southern hemisphere, whilst on the darkest nights innumerable fire-flies flash 104 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. their intermittent lights as they pass amongst the low bushes or herbage, making another twinkling firmament on earth. On other evenings, sitting inside with lighted candles and wide- opened doors, great bats flap inside, make a round of the apartment, and pass out again, or iris- winged moths, attracted by the light, flit about the ceiling, or long-horned beetles flop down on the table ; and in this way I made nay first acquaintance with many entomological rarities.* The heaviest rains fall in July and August, and at these times the brooks are greatly swollen; the one in front of my house sometimes carried away the little wooden bridge that crossed it, and for an hour or two be- came impassable, but subsided again almost as soon as the heavy rain ceased falling, for the watershed above does not extend far. Every year our operations were impeded by runs in the mines, or by small landslips stopping up our tramways and levels, or floods carrying away our dam or breaking our watercourses ; but after August we considered our troubles on this score at an end for the season. Occasionally the rains lasted three or four days without intermission, but generally they would come on in the afternoon, and there would be a downpour, such as is only seen in the tropics, for an hour or two, then some clear weather, until another great bank of clouds rolled up from the north-east and sent down another deluge. In September, October, and November there are breaks of fine weather, sometimes lasting for a fortnight ; but De- * In moths, numerous fine Sphingidse and Bombycidce ; and in beetles, amongst many others, the rare Xestia nitida (Bates) and Hexoplon alUpenne (Bates) were first described from these evening captures. Ch. Y1L] EXCURSIONS. 105 cember is generally a very wet month, the rains ex- tending far into January, so that it is not until February that the roads begin to dry up. I had much riding about. The mines worked by us, when I first went out, extended from Consuelo, a mile higher up the valley, to Pavon, a mile below Santo Do- mingo ; and even after I had concentrated our operations to those nearer to our reduction works, there were many occasions for me to ride into the woods. I had to look after our woodcutters and charcoal-burners, to see that they did not encroach upon the lands of our neighbours, as they were inclined to do, and involve us in squabbles and lawsuits ; paths were to be opened out, to bring in nispra and cedar timber ; our property had to be sur- veyed, and new mines, found in the woods, visited and explored. Besides this, I spent most of my spare time in the forest, which surrounded us on every side, so that we could not go a mile in any direction without getting into it : longer excursions were frequent. The Nicaraguans, like all Spanish Americans, are very litigious, and every now then I would be summoned, as the representative of the company, to appear atLibertad, Juigalpa, or Acoyapo, to answer some frivolous complaint, generally made with the expectation of extorting money, but entertained and probably remanded from time to time by the often un- scrupulous judges, who are so badly paid by the govern- ment that they have to depend upon the fees of suitors for their support, and are often open to corruption. These rides and strolls into the woods were very fruitM in natural-history acquisitions and observation. I shall give an account of some of those made in the immediate vicinity of Santo Domingo, and I wish I could transfer to 106 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. my readers some of the pleasure that they afforded me. They gave the relief that enabled me to carry on for years an incessant struggle, under great difficulties, to bring the mines into a paying state, continually hampered for want of sufficient capital, with most inadequate machinery, and all the annoyances, delays, and disappointments inevi- table in carrying on such a precarious enterprise as gold- mining far in the interior of a half- civilised country. The brook that ran at the foot of the bank below my house, and there called the " Quebrada de Santo Do- mingo," is dignified half a mile lower down, after pass- ing the mines of the Javali Company and receiving the waters of another brook coming down from the westward, by the name of the Javali river. The Indians, however, both at the Indian village of Carca, seven miles back in the mountains, and those even lower down the river itself, call it " Artigua." The preservation of these old Indian names is important, as they might sometime or other throw considerable light on the early inhabitants of the country. In all parts of the world the names of mountains, valleys, lakes, and rivers are among the most certain memorials of the ancient inhabitants. The reason the names of the • natural features of a country remain unchanged under the sway of successive nations, speaking totally different languages, appears to be this. The successful invaders of a country, even in the most cruel times, never extermi- nated the people they conquered ; at the least, the young women were spared. The conquerors established their otvn language, and to everything they had known in their own land they gave their own names ; but for those quite, new to them, which nearly always included the moun- tains, valleys, lakes, and rivers, and often the towns and Ch. VII.] THE RIVULET ARTIGTJA. 107 many of the natural productions, they accepted the names from the survivors of the conquered people, instead of in- venting new ones. Often the names were corrupted, the new inhabitants altering them just a little, to render their pronunciation easier, or to make them significant in their own language. Thus the fruit of the Persea gratissima was called " ahuacatl ' by the ancient Mexicans ; the Spaniards corrupted it to " avocado/' which means an advocate; and our sailors still further, to " alligator pears/' The town of Comelapa, in Chontales, the name of which means, in Spanish, "Eat a macaw," is undoubtedly a corruption of some old Indian name of similar form to that of the not distant village of Comoapa, although the Spaniards give an absurd explanation of it* evidently invented, according to which it was so called because a sick man was cured of a deadly disease by eating the bird indicated. The Artigua — I shall call it so, to do what I can to save the name from oblivion — is wofully polluted by the gold-mining on its banks, and flows, a dark muddy stream, through the village of Santo Domingo, and just below it precipitates itself one hundred and twenty feet over a rocky fall. One of the forest roads leads down its banks for several miles to some small clearings, whero a few scattered, Spanish- speaking Indians and half- breeds cultivate maize and plantains. After leaving Santo Domingo, it at first follows the left bank of the stream, through low bushes and small trees of second growth, then crosses a beautiful clear brook coming down from the east, then, winding round a slope covered with great trees and dense undergrowth, reaches the site chosen for the machinery at Pavon, where a large 108 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. space had been cleared, much of which was covered with grass. After descending a steep hill, the Artigua, with its muddy water, was crossed. Plere, in the dry season, in the hot afternoons, the wet sandy banks were the favourite resorts of multitudes of butterflies, that gathered in great masses on particular moist spots in such num- bers that with one swoop of my net I have enclosed more than thirty in its gauzy folds. These butterflies were principally different species of Cattidryas, yellow and white, mixed with brown and red species of Timetes, which, when disturbed, rose in a body and circled about; on the ground, looking like a bouquet ; when rising, like a fountain of flowers. In groups, by themselves, would be five or six specimens of yellow and black Papilios, greedily sucking up the moisture, and vibrating their wings, now and then taking short flights and settling again to drink. Hesperidaa, too, abounded ; and in a favourable afternoon more than twenty different species of butterflies might be taken at these spots, the finest being a lovely white, green, and black swallow-tailed Papilio, the first capture of which filled me with delight. Near the river were some fallen-down wooden sheds, partly overgrown with a red-flowered vine. Here a large spider (Nephila) built strong yellow silken webs, joined one on to the other, so as to make a complete curtain of web, in which were entangled many large butterflies, generally forest species, caught when flying across the clearing. I was at first surprised to find that the kinds that frequent open places were not caught, although they abounded on low white-flowered shrubs, close to the webs ; but, on getting behind them, and trying to frighten them within the silken curtain, Ch. VII.] THE HELICOXIDJE. 109 their instinct taught them to avoid it, for, although startled, they threaded their way through open spaces and between the webs with the greatest ease. It was one instance of many I have noticed of the strong instinct implanted in insects to avoid their natural enemies. I shall mention two others. The Heliconidce, a tribe of butterflies peculiar to tropical America, with long, narrow, weak wings, are distasteful to most ani- mals : I have seen even spiders drop them out of their webs again ; and small monkeys, which are extremely fond of insects, will not eat them, as I have proved over and over again. Probably, in consequence of this special protection, they have not needed stronger wings, and hence their weak flight. They are also very bold, allowing one to walk close up to flowers on which they alight. There is one genus with transparent wings that frequents the white-flowered shrubs in the clearing, and I have sometimes advanced my hand within six inches of them without frightening them. There is, however, a yellow and black banded wasp that catches them to store his nest with ; and whenever one of these came about, they would rise fluttering in the air, where they were safe, as I never saw the wasp attack them on the wing. It would hawk round the groups of shrubs, trying to pounce on one unawares ; but their natural dread of this foe made it rather difficult to do so. When it did catch one, it would quietly bite off its wings, roll it up into a ball, and fly off with it. Again, the cockroaches that infest the houses of the tropics are very wary, as they have numerous enemies — birds, rats, scorpions, and spiders : their long, trembling antennae are ever stretched out, vibrating as if feeling the very texture of the air 110 THE NATURALIST IN NICAEAGUA. [Ch. VII. around them ; and their long legs quickly take them out of danger. Sometimes I tried to chase one of them up to a corner where on the wall a large cockroach- eating spider stood motionless, looking out for his prey ; the cockroach would rush away from me in the greatest fear ; but as soon as it came within a foot of its mortal foe nothing would force it onwards, but back it would double, facing all the danger from me rather than ad- vance nearer to its natural enemy. To return to the spiders : besides the large owner and manufacturer of each web who was stationed near its centre, there were on the outskirts several very small ones, belonging, I think, to two different species, one of which was probably the male of a Thomisus, the males in this genus being much smaller than the females. I sometimes threw a fly into one of the webs : the large spicier would seize it and commence sucking its blood. The small ones, attracted by the sight of the prey, would advance cautiously from the circumference, but generally stop short about half-way up the web, evidently afraid to come within reach of the owner ; thus having to content themselves with looking at the provisions, like hungry urchins nosing the windows of an eating-house. Some- times one would advance closer, but the owner would* when it came within reach, quickly lift up one of its feet and strike at it, like a feeding horse kicking at another that came near its provender, and the little intruder would have to retire discomfited. These little spiders probably feed on minute insects entangled in the web, too small for the consideration of the huge owner, to whom they may be of assistance in clearing the web. Soon after crossing the muddy Artigua below Pavon, Ch. YII.J HUMMING-BIRDS. Ill a beautifully clear and sparkling brook is reached, coming down to join its pure waters with the soiled river below. In the evening this was a favourite resort of many birds that came to drink at the pellucid stream, or catch insects playing above the water. Amongst the last was the beautiful blue, green, and white humming-bird W&'m^ ifcS&fc '. : I - * HUMMING-BIRDS. (Fforisugi meltivora, Linn.) ; the head and neck deep metallic-blue, bordered on the back by a pure white collar over the shoulders, followed by deep metallic- green ; on the underside the blue neck is succeeded by green, the green from the centre of the breast to the end of the tail by pure white ; the tail can be expanded to a 112 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. YII. half circle, and each feather widening towards the end makes the semicircle complete around the edge. When catching the ephemeridae that play above the water, the tail is not expanded : it is reserved for times of court- ship. I have seen the female sitting quietly on a branch, and two males displaying their charms in front of her. One would shoot up like a rocket, then suddenly ex- panding the snow-white tail like an inverted parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round gradually to show off both back and front. The effect was height- ened by the wings being invisible from a distance of a few yards, both from their great velocity of movement and from not having the metallic lustre of the rest of the body. The expanded white tail covered more space than all the rest of the bird, and was evidently the grand feature in the performance. Whilst one was descending, the other would shoot up and come slowly down ex- panded. The entertainment would end in a fight be- tween the two performers ; but whether the most beautiful or the most pugnacious was the accepted suitor, I know not. Another fine humming-bird seen about this brook was the long-billed, fire-throated HeUomaster pallidiceps, Gould, generally seen probing long narrow- throated red flowers, forming, with their attractive nectar, complete traps for the small insects on which the humming-birds feed, the bird returning the favour by carrying the pollen of one flower to another. A third species, also seen at this brook, Petasophora dclpliince, Less., is of a dull brown colour, with brilliant purple ear-feathers and metallic-green throat. Both it and Florisuga mettivora are short billed, generally catching flying insects, and do not frequent flowers so much as other humming-birds. I Ch. VII.] TOXGUE OF HUMMING-BIRDS. 113 have seen the Petasophora fly into the centre of a dancing column of midges and rapidly darting first at one and then at another secure half a dozen of the tiny flies before the column was broken up ; then retire to a branch and wait until it was re-formed, when it made another sudden descent on them. A fourth species (Heliothnx bar rot i, Bourc.), brilliant green above, white below, with a shining purple crest, has also a short bill, and I never saw it about flowers, but always hovering underneath leaves and searching for the small soft-bodied spiders that are found there. Two of them that I examined, both had these spiders in their crops. I have no doubt many humming-birds suck the honey from flowers, as I have seen it exude from their bills when shot ; but others do not frequent them ; and the principal food of all is small insects. I have examined scores of them, and never without finding insects in their crops. Their generally long bills have been spoken of by some naturalists as tubes into which they suck the honey by a piston-like movement of the tongue ; but suction in the usual way would be just as effective ; and I am satisfied that this is not the primary use of the tongue, nor of the- mechanism which enables it to be exserted to a great length beyond the end of the bill. The tongue, for one-half of its length, is semi-horny and cleft in two, Tongue of Humming-bird, with the blades a little opened. the two halves are laid flat against each other when at rest, but can be separated at the will of the bird and form a delicate pliable pair of forceps, most admirably 114 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. adapted for picking out minute insects from amongst the stamens of the flowers. The woodpecker, which has a similar extensile mechanism for exserting its' tongue to a great length, also uses it to procure its food — in its case soft grubs from holes in rotten trees — and to enable it to pull these out, the end of the tongue is sharp and horny, and barbed with short stiff recurved bristles. Tongue of large red -crested Woodpecker. Continuing down the river, the road again crosses it, and enters on the primeval forest almost untouched by the hand of man, excepting in spots where the trees that furnish the best charcoal have been cut down by the charcoal-burners, or a gigantic isolated cedar (Cedrela odorata) lias been felled for shingles, bringing down in its fall a number of the neighbouring trees entangled in the great bush ropes. Such open spots, letting in the sunshine into the thick forests, were favourite stopping- places ; for numerous butterflies frequent them, all beautiful and most varied in their colours and marking. The fallen trees, too, are the breeding-places of multitudes of beetles, whose larva? riddle them with holes. Some beetles frequent different varieties of timber, others are peculiar to a single tree. The most noticeable of these beetles are the numerous longicorns, to the collection of which I paid a great deal of attention, and brought home more than three hundred species. More than one-half of these were new to science, and have been described by Mr. Bates. To show how prolific the locality was in insect life, I need only state that about two hundred and ninety Ch. VII.] GIGANTIC AXIS. 115 of the species were taken within a radius of four miles, having on one side the savannahs near Pital, on the other the ranges around Santo Domingo. Some run and fly only in the daytime, others towards evening and in the short twilight ; but the great majority issue from their hiding-places only in the night-time, and during the day lie concealed in withered leaves, beneath fallen logs, under bark, and in crevices amongst the moss grow- ing on the trunks of trees, or even against the bare trunk, protected from observation by their mottled brown, grey, and greenish tints — assimilating in colour and ap- pearance to the bark of the tree. Up and down the fallen timber would swiftly stalk gigantic black ants, one inch in length, provided with most formidable stings, and disdaining to run away from danger. They are slow and stately in their movements, seeming to prey solely on the slow-moving wood-borers, which they take at a great disadvantage when half buried in their burrows, and bear off in their great jaws. They appear to use their sting only as a defensive weapon ; but other smaller species that hunt singly, and are very agile, use their stings to paralyse their prey. I once saw one of these on the banks of the Artigua chasing a wood-louse (Oniscus), very like our common English species, on a nearly perpendicular slope. The wood-louse, when the ant got near it, made convulsive springs, throwing itself down the slope, whilst the ant followed, coursing from side to side, and examin- ing the ground with its vibrating antennae. The actions of the wood-louse resembled that of the hunted hare trying to throw the dog off its scent, and the ant was like the dog in its movements to recover the trail. At last the wood-louse reached the bottom of the slope, and i 2 116 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. concealed itself amongst some leaves ; but the ant soon discovered it, paralysed it with, a sting, and was run- ning away with it, turned in, back downwards, beneath itself, when I secured the hunter for my collection. All these ants that hunt singly have the eyes well developed, and thus differ greatly from the Ecitons, or army ants. The road, continuing down the Artigua, crosses it again, winds away from it, then comes again to its bank at a beautifully rocky spot overhung by trees ; the banks are there covered with plants and shrubs, and the rocks with a great variety of ferns, whilst a babbling clear brook conies down from the ranges to the right. Some damp spots near the river are covered with a carpet of a beautiful variegated, velvety-leaved plant (Cyrtodeira chontalemix) with a flower like an achimenes, whilst the dryer slopes bear melastomee and a great variety of dwarf palms, amongst which the Sweetie (Geonoma sp.), used for thatching houses, is the most abundant. About here grows a species of cacao (Herrania purpurea) differing from the cultivated species (Theobroma cacao). Amongst the larger trees grows the " cortess," having a wood as hard as ebony, and at the end of March entirely covered with brilliant yellow flowers, unrelieved by any green, the tree casting its leaves before flowering. The great yellow domes may be distinguished amongst the dark green forest at the distance of five or six miles ; nearer at hand they are absolutely dazzling with their foliage of gold, when the sun is shining on them ; and when they shed their flowers, the ground below is carpeted with yellow. Another valuable timber tree, the "nispera" (Achras sapota), is also common, growing on Cb. VII.] SPIDER-MONKEYS. 117 the dryer ridges. It grows to a great size, and its timber is almost indestructible ; so that we used it in the con- struction of all our permanent works. "White ants do not eat it, nor, excepting when first cut, and before it is barked, do any of the wood-boring beetles. It bears a round fruit about the size of an apple, hard and heavy when green, and at this time is much frequented by the large yellowish-brown spider-monkey (Ateles), which roams over the tops of the trees in bands of from ten to twenty. Sometimes they lay quiet until I was passing underneath, when, shaking a branch of the nispera tree, they would send down a shower of the hard round fruit ; but fortunately I was never struck by them. As soon as I looked up, they would commence yelping and barking, and putting on the most threatening gestures, breaking off pieces of branches and letting them fall, and shaking off more fruit, but never throwing anything, simply Jetting it fall. Often, when on lower trees, they would hang from the branches two or three together, hold- ing on to each other and to the branch with their fore feet and long tail, whilst their hind feet hung down, all the time making threatening gestures and cries. Sometimes a female would be seen carrying a young one on its back, to which it clung with legs and tail, the mother making its way along the branches, and leaping from tree to tree, apparently but little encumbered with its baby. A large black and white eagle is said to prey upon them, but I never saw one, although I was constantly falling in with troops of the monkeys. Don Francisco Velasquez, one of our officers, told me that one day he heard a monkey crying out in the forest for more than two hours, and at last, going to see what was the matter, he saw a monkey 118 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. on a branch and an eagle beside it trying to frighten it to turn its back, when it would have seized it. The monkey, however, kept its face to its foe, and the eagle did not care to engage with it in this position, but probably would have tired it out. Velasquez fired at the eagle, and frightened it away. I think it likely, from what I have seen of the habits of this monkey, that they defend themselves from its attack by keeping two or three together, thus assisting each other, and that it is only when the eagle finds one separated from its companions that it dares to attack it. Sometimes, but more rarely, a troop of the white-faced cebus monkey would be fallen in with, rapidly running away, throwing themselves from tree to tree. This monkey feeds also partly on fruit, but is incessantly on the look-out for insects, examining the crevices in trees and withered leaves, seizing the largest beetles and munching them up with greatest relish. It is also very fond of eggs and young birds, and must play havoc amongst the nestlings. Probably owing to its carnivorous habits, its flesh is not considered so good by monkey- eaters as that of the fruit-feeding spider-monkey ; but I never myself tried either. It is a very intelligent and mischievous animal. I kept one for a long time as a pet, and was much amused with its antics. At first, I had it fastened with a light chain ; but it managed to open the links and escape several times, and then made straight for the fowls' nests, breaking every egg it could get hold of. Generally, after being a day or two loose, it would allow itself to be caught again. I tried tying it up with, a cord, and afterwards with a raw- hide thong, but had to nail the end, as it could loosen any knot in a few Ch. VII.] TRICKS OF A MOXKET. 119 minutes. It would sometimes entangle itself round a pole to which it was fastened, and then unwind the coils again with the greatest discernment. Its chain allowed it to swing down below the verandah, but it could not reach to the ground. Sometimes, when there were broods of young ducks about, it would hold out a piece of bread in one hand, and, when it had tempted a duck- ling within reach, seize it by the other, and kill it with a bite in the breast. There was such an uproar amongst the fowls on these occasions, that we soon knew what was the matter, and would rush out and punish Mickey (as we called him) with a switch ; so that he was ultimately cured of his poultry-killing propensities. One day, when whipping him, I held up the dead duckling in front of him, and at each blow of the light switch told him to take hold of it, and at last, much to my surprise, he did so, taking it and holding it tremblingly in one hand. He would draw things toAvards him with a stick, and even used a swing for the same purpose. It had been put up for the children, and could be reached by Mickey, who now and then indulged himself in a swing on it. One day, I had put down some bird-skins on a chair to dry, far beyond, as I thought, Mickey's reach ; but, fer- tile in expedients, he took the swing and launched it towards the chair, and actually managed to knock the skins off in the return of the swing, so as to bring them within his reach. He also procured some jelly that was set out to cool in the same way. Mickey's actions were very human-like. When any one came near to fondle him, he never neglected the opportunity of pocket- picking. He would pull out letters, and quickly take them from their envelopes. Anything eatable disap- 120 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. pcared into his mouth immediately. Once he abstracted a small bottle of turpentine from the pocket of our medical officer. He drew the cork, held it first to one nostril then to the other, made a wry face, recorked it, and returned it to the doctor. One day, when he got loose, he was detected carrying off the cream-jug from the table, holding it upright with both hands, and trying to move off on his hind limbs. He gave the jug up without spilling a drop, all the time making an apologetic grunt- ing chuckle he often used when found out in any mis- chief, and which alwavs meant, " I know I have done \j * wrong, but don't punish me ; in fact, I did not mean to do it, — it was accidental." Whenever, however, he saw he was going to be punished, he would change his tone to a shrill, threatening note, showing his teeth, and try- ing to intimidate. He had quite an extensive vocabulary of sounds, varying from a gruff bark to a shrill whistle ; and we could tell by them, without seeing him, when it was he was hungry, eating, frightened, or menacing ; doubtless, one of his own species would have understood various minor shades of intonation and expression that we, not entering into his feelings and wants, passed over as unintelligible. There is a third species of monkey (Mycetes pattiatm), called by the natives the congo, which occasionally is heard howling in the forest; but they are not often seen, as they generally remain quiet amongst the upper branches of particular trees. One day, when riding down this path, I came upon a pack of pisotis (Nasua fusca, Desm.), a raccoon-like animal, that ascends all the small trees, searching for birds' nests and fruits. There were not less than fifty in the pack I saw, and nothing seemed likely to escape their Ch. VII.] CUEASSOW BIRDS. 121 search in the track they were travelling. Sometimes solitary specimens of the pisoti are met with, hunting alone in the forest. I once saw one near Juigalpa, ascending tree after tree, and climbing every branch, apparently in search of birds' nests. They are very fond of eggs; and the tame ones, which are often kept as pets, play havoc amongst the poultry when they get loose. They are about the size of a hare, with a taper snout, strong tusks, a thick hairy coat, and bushy tail. TThen passing down this road, I sometimes saw the fine curl- crested curassow (Crax globicera), as large as a turkey, jet black, excepting underneath. This kind would always take to the trees, but was easy to shoot, and as good eating as it was noble in appearance. The female is a very different-looking bird from the male, being of a fine brown colour. Dr. Sclater, in a paper read before the Zoological Society of London, June 17th, 1873, showed that in the south and central American species of Crax there is a complete gradation from a species in which the sexes scarcely differ, through others in which they differ more and more, until in Crax globicera they are quite distinctly coloured, and have been described as different species. The natives call them " pavones,'' and often keep them tame ; but I never heard of them breeding in confinement. Another fine game bird is a species of Penelope, called by the natives " pavos. It feeds on the fruits of trees, and I never saw it feeding on the ground. A similar, but much smaller, bird, called " chachalabes," is often met with in the low scrub. Mountain hens (species of Tinamus) were not un- 122 THE XATUEALIST IX XICAEAGUA. [Cli. VII. common, about the size of a plump fowl, and tasting like a pheasant. There were also two species of grouse and a ground pigeon, all good eating. Amongst the smaller birds were trogons, mot-mots, toucans, and woodpeckers. The trogons are general feeders. I have taken from their crops the remains of fruits, grasshoppers, beetles, termites, and even small crabs and land shells. Three species are not uncommon in the forest around Santo Domingo. In all of them the females are dull brown or slaty black on tbe back and neck, these parts being beautiful bronze green in the male. The largest species (Trogon massena, Gould) is one foot in length, dark bronze green above, with the smaller wing feathers speckled white and black, and the belly of a beautiful carmine. Sometimes it- sits on a branch above where the army ants are foraging below ; and when a grasshopper or other large insect flies up and alights on a leaf, it darts after it, picks it up, and returns to its perch. I sometimes found them breaking into the nests of the termites with their strong bills, and eating the large soft-bodied workers ; and it was from the crop of this species that I took the remains of a small crab and a land shell (Helicina). Of the two smaller species, one (Trogon atricollis, Viell.) is bronze green above, with speckled black and white wings, belly vellow, and under feathers of the tail white, barred with •/ ' black. The other (Trogon caligatm, Gould) is rather smaller, of similar colours, excepting the head, which is black, and a dark blue collar round the neck. Both species take short, quick, jerky flights, and are often met with along with flocks of other birds — fly- catchers, tanagers, creepers, woodpeckers, &c., that hunt together, Ch. YII.] AYOODPECKERS AND MOT-MOTS. 123 traversing the forests in flocks of hundreds together, belonging to more than a score different species ; so that whilst they are passing over, the trees seern alive with them. Mr. Bates has mentioned similar gregarious flocks met with by him in Brazil ; and I never went any distance into the woods around Santo Domingo without seeing them. The reason of their association together may be partly for protection, as no rapacious bird or mammal could approach the flock without being discovered by one or other of them, but the principal reason appears to be that they play into each other's hands in their search for food. The creepers and woodpeckers and others drive the insects out of their hiding-places under bark, amongst moss, and in withered leaves. The fly-catchers and trogons sit on branches, and fly after the larger insects, the fly- catchers taking them on the wing, the trogons from off the leaves on which they have settled. In the breeding season, the trogons are continually calling out to each other, and are thus easily discovered. They are called "viduas," that is, " widows," by the Spaniards. Woodpeckers are often seen along with the hunting flocks of birds, especially a small one (Centrums pucker ani, Mahl), with red and yellow head and speckled back. This species feeds on fruits, as well as on grubs taken out of dead trees. A large red-crested species is common near recently-made clearings, and I successively met with one of an elegant chocolate-brown colour, and another brown with black spots on the back and breast, with a lighter- coloured crested head (Celeus castaneus, Wagl.). Of the mot-mots, I met with four species in the forest, all more or less olive green in colour (Momotus martil and lessom, and Prionyrhynchus carinatus &n.d. plafyrhyn- 124 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. cfius), having two of the tail-feathers very long, with the shafts denuded about an inch from the end. The mot-mots have all hoarse croak -like cries, heard at a great distance in the forest, and feed on large beetles and other insects. The toucans are very curious-looking birds, with their enormous bills. They hop with great agility amongst the branches. The largest species at Santo Domingo was the Rhamphastus tocard, Yieill., twenty-three inches in length, of which one-fourth was taken up by the long bill and another fourth by the tail ; above, all black, excepting the tail- coverts, which are white ; below, throat and breast clear lemon yellow, bordered with red, the rest black, excepting the under tail-coverts, red. When alive, the bill is beautifully painted with red, brown, and yellow. I kept a young one for some time as a pet until it was killed by my monkey. It became very tame, and was expert in catching cockroaches, swallowing them with a jerk of its bill. After passing through some low scrubby forest, very thick with tangled second growth, the clearings of the mestizoes were reached, about five miles below Santo Domingo. Maize, plantains, and a few native veget- ables were grown here, and the owners now and then came up to the village to sell their produce. Their houses were open- sided low huts, thatched with palm- leaves, and all their furniture rude ; bedsteads made out of a few rough poles, tied together with bark, supported on crotches stuck in the ground, with raw-hides stretched across them ; their cooking utensils a tortilla-stone and a few coarse earthenware jars and pans ; their clothing dirty cotton rags. This was the limit of my journeys in Ch. VII] SECOND-GROWTH FOREST. 125 this direction, although the path continued on to the savannahs towards San Thomas. The soil at this place is good, and I think that it has been long cultivated, as much of the forest appears of second growth, amongst which small palms and prickly shrubs are abundant. CHAPTER VIII. Description of San Antonio Valley— Great variety of animal life — Pitcher-flowered Marcgravias — Flowers fertilized by Hum- ming-birds— By Insects— Provision in some flowers to prevent insects, not adapted for carrying the pollen, from obtaining access to the nectaries— Stories about Wasps — Humming-birds bathing — Singular Myriapods — Ascent of Pena Blanca — Tapirs and Jaguars — Summit of Pena Blanca. ON the northern side of the Santo Domingo valley, op- posite to iny house, a branch valley came down from the north, which we called the San Antonio Yalley. It inter- sected all the lodes we were working, and I constructed a tramway up it as far as the most northern mine, called San Benito, by which we brought down the ore to the stamps and the firewood for the steam-engine, and in a short time we had cleared all the timber from the lower part of the valley ; and a dense scrub or second growth sprang up, through which numerous paths were made by the wood- cutters. I was almost daily up this valley, visiting the mines, or in the evening after the workmen had left, and on Saturday afternoons, when they discontinued work at two o'clock. On Sundays, too, it was our favourite walk, for the tramway was dry to walk on ; there were tunnels, mines, and sheds at various parts to get into if one of the sudden heavy showers of rain came on ; and there were always flowers or insects, or birds to claim one's atten- tion. I planned the whole of the tramway; the upper Cli. YIIL] AXT-THRUSHES AND BEETLES. 127 half I surveyed and levelled myself; and my almost daily walks up it familiarised me with every bush and fallen log by its side, and with every turn of the clear cool brook that came prattling down over the stones, soon at the machinery to lose its infantile purity, be soiled in the ceaseless search for gold, and never to regain its first freshness until it reached the great ocean. The sides of the valley rose steeply, and a fair view was obtained from the tramway in the centre over the shrubs and small trees on each side, so that the walk was not so hemmed in with foliage as is usual in the forest roads. Insects were plentiful by this path. In some parts brown tiger beetles ran or flew with great swiftness ; in others, leaf-cutting ants in endless trains carried along their burdens of foliage, looking, as they marched along with the segments of leaves, held up vertically, like green butterflies, or a mimic representation of a moving Birnam wood. Sometimes the chirping of the ant-thrushes drew attention to where a great body of army-ants were foraging amongst the fallen branches, sending the spiders, cockroaches, and grasshoppers fleeing for their lives, only to fall victims to the surrounding birds. On the fallen branches and logs I obtained many longicorn beetles ; the woodcutters brought me many more, and from this valley were obtained some of the rarest and finest species in my collection. On the myrtle-like flowers of some of the shrubs, large green cockchafers were to be found during the dry season, and a bright green rosechafer was also common. I was surprised to find on two occasions a green and brown bug (Pentatoma punicea) sucking the juices from dead specimens of this species. The bug has 123 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. Till. weak limbs, and the beetle is more than twice its size and weight, and is very active, quickly taking wing ; so that the only way in which it could have been overcome that I can think of, is by the bug creeping up when it was sleeping, quietly introducing the point of its sharp proboscis between the rings of its body and injecting some stupifying poison. In both instances that I wit- nessed, tbe bug was on a leaf up a shrub, with the bulky beetle hanging over suspended on its proboscis. Other species of bugs certainly inject poisonous fluids. One black and red species in the forest, if taken in the hand, would thrust its sharp proboscis into the skin, and pro- duce a pain worse than the sting of a wasp. Amongst the bushes were always to be found the beautiful scarlet and black tanager (Rhamphocvelus passerinii, Bp.), and more rarely another species {R. sanguinolentus, Less.). Along with these, a brownish- coloured bird, reddish on the breast and top of the head (Phcenicothraupis fnsi- cauda, Cab.), flew in small sociable flocks; whilst gene- rally somewhere in the vicinity, as evening drew on, a brown hawk might be seen up some of the low trees, watching the thoughtless chirping birds, and ready to pounce down when opportunity offered. Higher up the valley more trees were left standing, and amongst these small flocks of other birds might often be found, one green with red head (Calliste larinue, Cass.) ; another, shining green, with black head (Chlorophanes guatema- Icnsis) ; and a third, beautiful black, blue, and yellow, with yellow head (Calliste torcata, Du Bus.). These and many others were certain to be found where the climbing Marcgravia nepenthoides expanded its curious flowers. The flowers of this lofty climber are disposed in a circle, Ch. Till.] FLOWERS FERTILIZED BY BIRDS. 129 hanging downwards, like an inverted candelabrum. From the centre of the circle of flowers is suspended a number of pitcher-like vessels, which, when the flowers expand, in February and March, are filled with a sweetish liquid. This liquid attracts insects, and the insects numerous FLOWER OF MAIICGRAVIA NEPENTHOIDES. insectivorous birds, including the species I have men- tioned and many kinds of humming-birds. The flowers are ,so disposed, with the stamens hanging downwards, that the birds, to get at the pitchers, must brush against them, and thus convey the pollen from one plant to another. A second species of Marcgravia that I found in the woods around Santo Domingo has the pitchers placed close to the pedicels of the flowers, so that the birds must approach them from above ; and in this species the flowers are turned upwards, and the pollen is brushed off by the breasts of the birds. In temperate K 130 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VIII. latitudes we find many flowers fertilised by insects attracted by honey-bearing nectaries ; and in tropical America not only bees, moths, and other large insects carry the pollen from one flower to another, but many flowers, like the Marcgravia, are specially adapted to secure the aid of small birds, particularly humming-birds, for this purpose. Amongst these, the " palosabre," a species of Erythrina, a small tree, bearing red flowers, FLOWER OP PALOSABRE. that grew in this valley, near the brook, often drew my attention. The tree blooms in February, and is at the time leafless, so that the large red flowers are seen from a great distance. Each flower consists of a single long, rather fleshy petal, doubled over, flattened, and closed, excepting a small opening on one edge, where the stamens protrude. Only minute insects can find access to the flower, which secretes at the base a honey-like fluid. Two long-billed humming-birds frequent it ; one (Heliomaster pallidiceps, Gould), which I have already mentioned, is rather rare ; the other (Phcethornis longi- rostris, De Latt.) might be seen at any time when the tree was in bloom, by watching near it for a few minutes. It is mottled brown above, pale below, and the two middle tail feathers are much longer than the others. The bill is very long and curved, enabling the bird easily to probe the long flower, and with its extensile cleft tongue pick up the minute insects from the bottom of Ch. Till.] FOXGLOVE AXD HUMBLE-BEE. 131 the tube, where they are caught as if in a trap, their only way of exit being closed by the bill of the bird. Whilst the bird is probing the flower, the pollen of the stamens is rubbed in to the lower part of its head, and thus carried from one flower to fecundate another. The bottom of the flower is covered externally with a thick, fleshy calyx — an effectual guard against the attempts of bees or wasps to break through to get at the honey. Humming-birds feed on minute insects, and the honey would only be wasted if larger ones could gain access to it, but in the flower of the palosabre this contingency is simply and completely guarded against. Many flowers have contrivances for preventing useless insects from obtaining access to the nectaries. Amongst our English flowers there are scores of interesting examples, and I shall describe the fertilisation of one, the common foxglove, on account of the exceeding sim- plicity with which this object is effected, and to draw the attention of all lovers of nature to this other branch of a subject on which the labours of Darwin and other natu- ralists have of late years thrown a flood of light. The pollen of the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea} is carried from one flower to another by the humble bee, who, far more than the hive bee, that " improves each shining hour," deserves to be considered the type of steady, persevering industry. It improves not only the hours of sunshine, but those of cloud, and even rain ; and, long before the honey-bee has ventured from its door, is at work bustling from, flower to flower, its steady hum changing to an important squeak as it rifles the blossoms of their sweets. The racemes of purple bells held up by the foxglove are methodically visited by it, commencing at the bottom K 2 132 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. Till. flower, and ascending step by step to the highest. The four stamens and the pistil of the foxglove are laid closely against the upper side of the flower. First a stamen on one side opens its anthers and exposes its pollen. The humble-bee, as it bustles in, brushes this off. Then another stamen exposes its pollen on the other side, then another and another ; but not till all the pollen has been brushed off does the cleft- end of the pistil open, and expose its viscid stigma. The humble- bee brushes off the pollen into its hairy coat from the upper flowers of one raceme and carries it direct to the lowest flowers of another, where the viscid stigmas are open and ready to receive it. If the humble-bee went first to the upper flowers of the spike and proceeded downwards, the whole economy of this plant to procure cross fertilisation would be upset.* The open flower of the foxglove hangs downwards. The lower part, or dilated opening of the tube, is turned outwards, and has scattered stiff hairs distributed over its inner surface ; above these the inside of the flower hangs almost perpen- dicularly, and is smooth and pearly. The large humble- bee bustles in with the greatest ease, and uses these hairs as footholds whilst he is sucking the honey; but the smaller bees are impeded by them, and when, having at last strug- gled through them, they reach the pearly, slippery precipice above, they are completely bafBed. I passed the autumn * Darwin mentions having seen humble bees visiting- the flower- ing spikes of the Spiranthes autumnalis (ladies' tresses), and notices that they always commenced with the bottom flowers, and crawling spirally up sucked one flower after the other, and shows how this . proceeding ensures the cross fertilisation of different plants. — " Fer- tilisation of Orchids," 127. Ch. Till. SPIDERS THE PREY OF WASPS. 133 of 1857 in North Wales, where the foxglove was very abundant, and watched the flowers throughout the season, but only once saw a small bee reach the nectary, though many were seen trying in vain to do so. Great attention has of late years been paid by natu- ralists to the wonderful contrivances amongst flowers to secure cross fertilisation ; but the structure of many cannot, I believe, be understood, unless we take into consideration not only the beautiful adaptations for securing the services of the proper insect or bird, but also the contrivances for preventing insects that would not be useful from obtaining access to the nectar. Thus the immense length of the Angrcecum sesquipedale of Mada- gascar might, perhaps, have been more easily explained by Mr. Wallace, if this important purpose had been taken into account. The tramway in some parts was on raised ground, in others excavated in the bank side. In the cuttings the nearly perpendicular clay slopes were frequented by many kinds of wasps that excavated round holes of the diameter of their own bodies, and stored them with sting- paralysed spiders, grasshoppers, or horse-flies. Amongst these they lay their eggs, and the white grubs that issue therefrom feed on the poor prisoners, I one day saw a small black and yellow banded wasp (Pompihis poUstoides) hunting for spiders ; it approached a web where a spider was stationed in the centre, made a dart towards it — ap- parently a feint to frighten the spider clear of its web ; at any rate it had that effect, for it fell to the ground, and was immediately seized by the wasp, who stung it, then ran quickly backwards, dragging the spider after it, up a 134 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VIII. branch reaching to the ground until it got high enough, when it flew heavily off with it. It was so small, and the spider so heavy, that it prohahly could not have raised it from the ground "by flight. All over the world there are wasps that store their nests with the bodies of spiders for their young to feed on. In Australia, I often witnessed a wasp combating with a large flat spider that is found on the bark of trees. It would fall to the ground, and lie on its back, so as to be able to grapple with its opponent ; but the wasp was always the victor in the encounters I saw, although it was not always allowed to carry its prey off in peace. One day, sitting on the sand- banks on the coast of Hobson's Bay, I saw one dragging along a large spider. Three or four inches above it hovered two minute flies, keeping a little behind, and advancing with it. The wasp seemed much disturbed by the presence of the tiny flies, and twice left its prey to fly up towards them, but they darted away immedi- ately. As soon as the wasp returned to the spider, there they were hovering over and following it again. At last, unable to drive away its small tormentors, the wasp reached its burrow and took down the spider, and the two flies stationed themselves one on each side the entrance, and would, doubtless, when the wasp went away to seek another victim, descend and lay their own eggs in the nest. The variety of wasps, as of all other insects, was very great around Santo Domingo. Many made papery nests, hanging from the undersides of large leaves. Others hung their open cells underneath verandahs and eaves of houses. One large black one was particularly abundant about houses, and many people got stung by them. Ch. VIII.] IXSTIXCT AT FAULT. 135 They also build tlieir pendant nests in the orange and lime trees, and it is not always safe to gather the fruit. Fortunately they are heavy flyers, and can often be struck down or evaded in their attacks. They do good where there are gardens, as they feed their young on caterpillars, and are continually hunting for them. Another species, banded brown and yellow (Polistes carnifcx), has similar habits, but is not so common. Bates, in his account of the habits of the sand-wasps at Santarem, on the Amazon, gives an interesting account of the way in which they took a few turns in the air around the hole they had made in the sand before leaving to seek for flies in the forest, apparently to mark well the position of the burrow, so that on their return they might find it without difficulty. He remarks that this precaution would be said to be instinctive, but that the instinct is no mysterious and unintelligible agent, but a mental process in each individual differing from the same in man only by its unerring certainty.* I had an opportunity of confirming his account of the proceedings of wasps when quitting a locality to which they wished to return, in all but their unerring certainty. I could not help noting how similar they were to the way in which a man would act who wished to return to some spot not easily found out, and with which he was not previously acquainted. A specimen of the Polistes carnifex was hunting about for caterpillars in my garden. I found one about an inch long, and held it out towards it on the point of a stick. It seized it immediately, and com- menced biting it from head to tail, soon reducing the soft body to a mass of pulp. It rolled up about one-half of * " Naturalist on the Amazon," p. 222. 136 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VIII. it into a ball, and prepared to carry it off. Being at the time -amidst a thick mass of a fine-leaved climbing plant, it proceeded, before flying away, to take note of the place where it was leaving the other half. To do this, it hovered in front of it for a few seconds, then took small circles in front of it, then larger ones round the whole plant. I thought it had gone, but it returned again, and had another look at the opening in the dense foliage down which the other half of the caterpillar lay. It then flew away, but must have left its burden for dis- tribution with its comrades at the nest, for it returned in less than two minutes, and making one circle around the bush, descended to the opening, alighted 011 a leaf, and ran inside. The green remnant of the caterpillar was lying on another leaf inside, but not connected with the one on which the wasp alighted, so that in running in it missed it, and soon got hopelessly lost in the thick foliage. Coming out again, it took another circle, and pounced down on the same spot again, as soon as it came opposite to it. Three small seed-pods, which here grew close together, formed the marks that I had myself taken to note the place, and these the wasp seemed also to have taken as its guide, for it flew directly down to them, and ran inside ; but the small leaf on which the fragment of caterpillar lay, not being directly connected with any on the outside, it again missed it, and again got far away from the object of its search. It then flew out again, and the same process was repeated again and again. Always when in circling round it came in sight of the seed-pods down it pounced, alighted near them, and recommenced its quest on foot. I was surprised at its perseverance, and thought it would have given up the Ch. VIII.] HUMMIXG-BIEDS. 1ST search ; but not so, it returned at least half-a-dozen times, and seemed to get angry, hurrying about with. buzzing wings. At last it stumbled across its prey, seized it eager] y, and as there was nothing more to come back for, flew straight off to its nest, without taking any further note of the locality. Such an action is not the result of blind instinct, but of a thinking mind ; and it is wonderful to see an insect so differently constructed using a mental process similar to that of man. It is suggestive of the probability of many of the actions of insects that we ascribe to instinct being the result of the possession of reasoning powers. Where the tramway terminated at San Benito mine, the valley had greatly contracted in width, and the stream, excepting in time of flood, had dwindled to a little rill. A small rough path, made by the miners to bring in their timber, continued up the brook, crossing and recrossing it. The sides of the valley were very steep, and covered with trees and undergrowth. The foliage arched over the water, forming beautiful little dells, with small, clear pools of water. One of these was a favourite resort of humming-birds, who came there to bathe, for these gem-like birds are very frequent in their ablutions, and I spent many a half-hour in the evenings leaning against a trunk of a tree that had fallen across the stream four or five yards below the pool, and watching them. At all times of the day they occasionally came down, but during the short twilight there was a mass of bathers, and often there were two or three at one time hovering over the pool, which was only three feet across, and dipping into it. Some would delay their evening toilet until the shades of night were thickening, and it 138 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VIII. became almost too dark to distinguish them from my stand. Three species regularly frequented the pool, and three others occasionally visited it. The commonest was the Thalurania venusta (Gould) , the male of which is a most beautiful bird, — the front of the head and shoulders glistening purple, the throat brilliant light green, shining in particular lights like polished metal, the breast blue, and the back dark green. It was a beautiful sight to see this bird hovering over the pool, turning from side to side by quick jerks of its tail, now showing its throat a gleaming emerald, now its shoulders a glistening amethyst, then darting beneath the water, and rising instantly, throw off a shower of spray from its quivering wings, and again fly up to an overhanging bough and commence to preen its feathers. All humming-birds bathe on the wing, and generally take three or four dips, hovering, between times, about three inches above the surface. Sometimes when the last-mentioned species was sus- pended over the water, its rapidly vibrating wings look- ing like a mere film, a white speck, like a snow-flake, shot down the valley swift as the flight of an arrow, and stopped suddenly over the pool, startling the emerald- throat, and frightening it up amongst the overhanging branches. The intruder was the white-cap (Microchera parvirostris, Lawr.), the smallest of thirteen different kinds of humming-birds that I noticed around Santo Domingo ; being only a little more than two and a half inches in length, including the bill ; but it was very pug- nacious, and I have often seen it drive' some of the larger birds away from a flowering tree. Its body is purplish-- red, with green reflections, the front of its head flat, and pearly white, and, when flying towards one, its white Ch. VIII.] XOTES OF HUMMING-BIRDS. 139 head is the only part seen. Sometimes the green-throat would hold its ground, and then it was comical to see them hovering over the water, jerking round from side to side, eyeing each other suspiciously, the one determin- ing to dip, but apparently afraid to do so, for fear the other would take a mean advantage, and do it some mischief whilst under water ; though what harm was possible I could not see, as there were no clothes to steal. I have seen timid bathers acting just like the birds, though from a different cause, bobbing down towards the water, but afraid to dip overhead ; and the idea of comi- cality arose, as it does in most of the ludicrous actions of animals, from their resemblance to those of mankind. The dispute would generally end by the green-throat giving way, and leaving the pugnacious little white-cap in possession of the pool. Besides the humming-birds I have mentioned, there were four or five other small ones that we used to call squeakers, as it is their habit for a great part of the day to sit quietly on branches and every now and then to chirp out one or two shrill notes. At first I thought these sounds proceeded from insects, as they resemble those of crickets ; but they are not so continuous. After a while I got to know them, and could distinguish the notes of the different species. It was not until then I found out how full the woods are of humming-birds, for they are most difficult to see when perched amongst the branches, and when flying they frequent the tops of trees in flower, where they are indistinguishable. I have sometimes heard the different chirps of more than a dozen individuals, although unable to get a glimpse of one of them, as they are mere brown specks on the 140 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VIII. branches, their metallic colours not showing from below, and the sound of their chirpings — or rather squeakings — is most deceptive as to their direction and distance from the hearer. My conclusion, after I got to know their voices in the woods, was that the humming-birds around Santo Domingo equalled in number all the rest of the birds together, if they did not greatly exceed them. Yet one may sometimes ride for hours without seeing one. They build their nests on low shrubs — often on branches over- hanging paths, or on the underside of the large leaves of the shrubby palm-trees. They are all bold birds, suffer- ing you to approach nearer than any other kinds, and often flying up and hovering within tAVO or three yards from you. This fearlessness is probably owing to the great security from foes that their swiftness of flight ensures to them. I have noticed amongst butterflies that the swiftest and strongest flyers, such as the Hesperidce, also allow you to approach much nearer to them than those with weaker wings, feeling confident that they can dart away from any threatened danger — a misplaced con- fidence, however, so far as the net of the collector is concerned. At the head of the tramway, near the entrance to the San Benito mine, we planted about three acres of the banks of the valley with grass. In clearing away the fallen logs and brushwoods, many beetles, scorpions, and centipedes were brought to light. Amongst the last was a curious species belonging to the sucking division of the Myriapods (Suyantia, of Brandt), which had a singular method of securing its prey. It is about three inches long, and sluggish in its movements ; but from its tubular mouth it is able to discharge a viscid fluid to the distance Ch. VIII.] CATTLE PASTURE. 141 of about three inches, which stiffens on exposure to the air to the consistency of a spider's web, but stronger. With this it can envelope and capture its prey, just as a fowler throws his net over a bird. The order of Myriapoda is placed by systematists at the bottom of the class of insects ; the sucking Myriapods are amongst the lowest forms of the order, and it is singular to find one of these lowly organised species furnished with an apparatus of such utility, and the numberless higher forms without any trace of it. Some of the other centipedes have two phosphorescent spots in the head, which shine brightly at night, casting a greenish light for a little distance in front of them. I do not know the use of these lights, but think that they may serve to dazzle and allure the insects on which they prey. We planted two kinds of grasses, both of which have been introduced into Nica- ragua within the last twenty years. They are called Para and Guinea grasses, I believe, after .the places from which they were first brought. The former is a strong succulent grass, rooting at the joints ; the latter grows in tufts, rising to a height of four to five feet. Both are greatly liked by cattle and mules ; large bundles were cut every day for the latter whilst they were at work on the tramway, and they kept in good condition on it without other food. The natural, indigenous grass that springs up in clearings in the neighbouring forest is a creeping species, and is rather abundant about Santo Domingo. It has a bitter taste, and cattle do not thrive on it, but rapidly fall away in condition if confined to it. They do better when allowed to roam about the outskirts V of the forest amongst the brushwood, as they browse on the leaves of many of the bushes. This grass is not 142 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ck. VIII. found far outside the forest, but is replaced on the savannahs by a great variety of tufted grasses, which seem gradually to overcome the creeper in the clearings on the edge of the forest ; but at Santo Domingo the latter was predominant, and although I sowed the seeds of other grasses amongst it, they did not succeed, on account of the cattle pecking them out and eating them in preference to the other. There were many other paths leading in different directions into the forest, but I shall describe one of them, as it differed from those already mentioned, leading to the top of a bare rock, rising fully 1,000 feet above Santo Domingo. This rock, on the southern and most perpendicular side, weathers to a whitish colour, and is called Pena Blanca, meaning the white peak. It is visible from some points on the savannahs. During the summer months it is, on the northern side, covered with the flowers of a caulescent orchid (Ornithorhynchos) that has not been found anywhere else in the neighbourhood; and the natives, who are very fond of flowers, inheriting the taste from their Indian ancestors, at this time, often on Sundays, go up to it and bring down large quantities of the blossoms. Its colour, when it first opens, is scarlet and yellow. Amongst it grows a crimson Mack- leania. Once when I made an ascent, in March, these flowers were in perfection, and in great abundance, and the northern face of the rock was completely covered with them. When I emerged from the gloomy forest, the sun was shining brightly on it, and the combination of scarlet, crimson, and yellow made a perfect blaze of colour, approaching more nearly to the appearance of Ch. VIIL] ASCEXT OF PEXA BLAXCA. 143 flames and fire than anything else I have seen in the floral world. The last ascent I made to the summit of Peiia Blanca was in the middle of June, 1872, after we had had about two weeks of continuously wet weather. At last, on the 17th, the rain clouds cleared away, the sun shone out, and only a few great fleecy cumuli sailed across the blue sky, driven by the north-east trade wind. I had on previous visits to the peak noticed the elytra of many beetles lying on the bare top. They were the remnants of insects caught by frogs, great bulky fellows that excited one's curiosity to know how ever they got there. Amongst the elytra were those of beetles that I had never taken, and as they were night- roaming species, I determined to go up some evening and wait until dark, with a lanthorn, to see if I could take any of them. We had one heavy shower of rain in the afternoon, so that the forest was very wet, and the hills slippery and difficult for the mule. The path ascends the valley of Santo Domingo, then crosses a range behind a mine called the " Consuelo/' enters the forest, descending at first a steep slope to a clear brook ; after crossing this, the ascent of the hill of Pena Blanca begins, and is continuous for about a mile to the top of the rock. The ground was damp, and the forest gloomy, but here and there glimpses of sunshine glanced through the trees, and enlivened the scene a little. I startled a mountain hen (Ttnamus, sp.)} which whirred off amongst the bushes like a grouse. The dry slopes of hills are their favourite feeding- places, and around Pena Blanca they are rather plentiful ; and so, also, in their season, are the curassows and penelopes. In the 144 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. VIII. lower ground, the footmarks of the tapir are very frequent, especially along the small paths, where I have sometimes traced them for more than a mile. They are harmless beasts. One of our men came across one near Pena Blanca, and attacked and killed it with his knife. He brought in the head to me. It was as large as that of a bullock. I often tried to track them, but never suc- ceeded in seeing one. One day in my eagerness to get near what I believed to be one, I rushed into rather un- pleasant proximity with a jaguar, the " tigre ' of the natives. I had just received a fresh supply of cartridge cases for my breech-loader, and wishing to get some specimens of the small birds that attend the armies of the foraging ants, I made up three or four small charges of No. 8 shot, putting in only a quarter of an ounce of shot into each charge, so as not to destroy their plumage. I went back into the forest along a path where I had often seen the great footmarks of the tapir. After riding about a couple of miles, I heard the notes of some birds, and, dismounting, tied up my mule, and pushed through the bushes. The birds were shy, and in following them I had got about fifty yards from the path, to a part where the big trees were more clear of brushwood, when I heard a loud hough in a thicket towards the left. It was something between a cough and a growl, but very loud, and could only have been produced by a very large animal. Never having seen or heard a jaguar before in the woods, and having often seen the footprints of the tapir, I thought it was the latter, and thinking I would have to get very close up to it to do it any damage with my little charge of small shot. I ran along towards the sound, which Ch. VIII.] ENCOUNTER WITH A JAGUAR. U5 was continued at intervals of a few seconds. Seeing a large animal moving amongst the thick bushes, only a few yards from me, I stopped, when, to my amazement, out stalked a great jaguar (like the housekeeper's rat, the largest I had ever seen), in whose jaws I should have been nearly as helpless as a mouse in those of a cat. He was lashing his tail, at every roar showing his great teeth, and was evidently in a bad humour. Notwithstanding I was so near to him, I scarcely think he saw me at first, as he was crossing the open glade about twenty yards in front of me. I had not even a knife with me to show fight if he attacked me, and my small charge of shot would not have penetrated beyond his skin, unless I managed to hit him when he was very near to me. To steady my aim, if he approached me, I knelt down on one knee, supporting my left elbow on the other. He was just opposite to me at the time, the movement caught his eye, he turned half round, and o »/ put down his neck and head towards the ground as if he was going to spring, and I believe he could have cleared the ground between us at a single bound, but the next moment he turned awav from me, and was lost sk'ht ** o of amongst the bushes. I half regretted I had not fired and taken my chance ; and when he disappeared, I followed a few yards, greatly chagrined that in the only chance I had ever had of bagging a jaguar, I was not prepared for the encounter, and had to let "I dare not, wait upon " I would." I returned the next morniu with a supply of ball cartridges, but in the night it had rained heavily, so that I could not even find the jaguar's tracks, and although afterwards I was always prepared, I never met with another. From the accounts of the nr n 146 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Cli. VIII. natives, I believe that in Central America he never attacks man unless first interfered with, but when wounded is very savage and dangerous. Velasquez told me that his father had mortally wounded one, which, however, sprang after him, and had got hold of him by the leg, when it fortunately fell down dead. The path up Pena Blanca hill gets steeper and steeper, until about fifty yards from the rock it is too precipitous and rugged to ride with safety, so that the rest of the ascent must be made on foot. Tying my mule to a sapling, I scrambled up the path, and soon emerging from the dark forest, stood under the grey face of the rock towering up above me. The rock has two peaks, of which the highest is accessible, footholds having been cut into the face of it, and the most diffi- cult part being surmounted by a rude ladder made by cutting notches in a pole. Above it the rock is shelving, and the top is easily reached. I found a strong north- east wind blowing, which made it rather uncomfortable on the top, but the view was very fine and varied. To the south-east and east the eye roams over range beyond range all covered with dark forest, that partly hides the inequalities of the ground, the trees in the hollows growing higher than those on the hills. On this side the rock is a sheer precipice, going down per- pendicularly for more than three hundred feet ; the face of the cliff all weathered white. The tops of the trees are far below, and as one looks down upon them, hearing the various cries and whistles of the birds come up, and marking the vultures wheeling round in aerial circles over the trees far below one's feet, one realises that at last the forest, with its world of foliage, Ch. VIIL] TIEW FROM THE PEXA BLANCA. 147 has been surmounted. Looking down on the tops of the trees, every shade of green from nearly brown to yellow meets the eye, here light as grass, there dark as holly, whilst the fleecy clouds above cast lines of dark shadows over hill and dale. Directly south-east is a high rock, about three miles distant, and beyond it the Carca and the Artigua rivers must meet, judging from the fall of the country. The course of the Carca is marked by some patches of light green, that look like grass, and are probably clearings made bv the Indians. tf To the south the eye first passes over about six miles of forest, then savannahs and grassy ranges stretching to the lake, which is only dimly seen, with the peaks of Madera and Ometepec more distinct, the latter bearing south-west by west. Alone on the summit of a high peak, with surging green billows of foliage all around, dim mistv mountains in the distance below, and above the j blue heavens, checkered with fleecy clouds, that have tra- velled up thousands of miles from the north-east, thoughts arise that can be only felt in their full intensity amid solitude and nature's grandest phases. Then man's intel- lect strives to grapple with the great mysteries of his existence, and like a fluttering bird that beats itself against the bars of its cage, falls back baffled and bruised. Another shower of rain came on, quickly followed by sunshine again. Great banks of vapour began to rise from the forest, and fill the valleys, and now looking down over the precipice, instead of foliage there was a glisten- ing white cloud spread out below, up through which came the cries of birds. The hills stood up through the cloud of mist like islands. To the south-west, over L 2 148 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VIII. the savannahs, the air was clear, and the peak of Ometepec was a fine object in the distance. A white cloud enveloping its top looked like a snow-cap, and this, as the night came on, descended lower and lower, """""" A^' ' '••% Jp :': . ipf . : '-m ! ?i!M»jH '''- ill ': •