of effort which puts to shame an average negro crew.  And these are all we have to fear, unless it be now and then a huge spider, which it is not the fashion here to kill, as they feed on flies.  So comfort yourself with the thought that, as regards insect pests, we are quite as comfortable as in an country-house, and infinitely more comfortable than in English country-house, and infinitely more comfortable than in a Scotch shooting lodge, let alone an Alpine chalet.

Lizards run about the walks in plenty, about the same size is the green lizard of the South of Europe, but of more sober colours.  The parasol ants—­of whom I could tell you much, save that you will read far more than I can tell you in half a dozen books at home—­walk in triumphal processions, each with a bit of green leaf borne over its head, and probably, when you look closely, with a little ant or two riding on it, and getting a lift home after work on their stronger sister’s back—­and these are all the monsters which you are likely to meet.

Would that there were more birds to be seen and heard!  But of late years the free Negro, like the French peasant during the first half of this century, has held it to be one of the indefeasible rights of a free man to carry a rusty gun, and to shoot every winged thing.  He has been tempted, too, by orders from London shops for gaudy birds—­humming-birds especially.  And when a single house, it is said, advertises for 20,000 bird-skins at a time, no wonder if birds grow scarce; and no wonder, too, if the wholesale destruction of these insect-killers should avenge itself by a plague of vermin, caterpillars, and grubs innumerable.  Already the turf of the Savannah or public park, close by, is being destroyed by hordes of mole-crickets, strange to say, almost exactly like those of our old English meadows; and unless something is done to save the birds, the cane and other crops will surely suffer in their turn.  A gun-licence would be, it seems, both unpopular and easily evaded in a wild forest country.  A heavy export tax on bird-skins has been proposed.  May it soon be laid on, and the vegetable wealth of the island saved, at the expense of a little less useless finery in young ladies’ hats.

So we shall see and hear but few birds round Port of Spain, save the black vultures {87a}—­Corbeaux, as they call them here; and the black ‘tick birds,’ {87b} a little larger than our English blackbird, with a long tail and a thick-hooked bill, who perform for the cattle here the same friendly office as is performed by starlings at home.  Privileged creatures, they cluster about on rails and shrubs within ten feet of the passer, while overhead in the tree-tops the ‘Qu’est ce qu’il dit,’ {87c} a brown and yellow bird, who seems almost equally privileged and insolent, inquires perpetually what you say.  Besides these, swallows of various kinds, little wrens, {87d} almost exactly like our English ones, and night-hawking goat-suckers, few birds are seen.  But, unseen, in the depths of every wood, a songster breaks out ever and anon in notes equal for purity and liveliness to those of our English thrush, and belies the vulgar calumny that tropic birds, lest they should grow too proud of their gay feathers, are denied the gift of song.