The American Egypt Part 23

CHAPTER XXII

FLORA AND FAUNA

There is perhaps nothing which strikes one at first sight in travelling through Yucatan so much as the absence of animal life. For the stay-at-home the usual idea of the Tropics is that it is that part of the earth where the deadliest serpents wait for you in the seclusion of the bathroom, or twine round your legs while you breakfast; that such cohorts of fearsome creatures watch for you with the patience of writ-servers at the garden gate that it is a miracle if by lunch-time you find you still "have the luck to live"; and that a reckless indulgence in even moderate walking-exercise will most certainly end in your falling a prey to one or more of those great beasts which, like the troops of Midian in the hymn, "prowl and prowl around."

The truth is very disappointing. Nothing is ever so bad or so good as we expect it to be. The Tropics, as far as Yucatan is concerned, are a case in point, both as regards beauty and dangers. The most luxuriant of Yucatecan woodland scenes would have real difficulty to hold its own in a beauty compet.i.tion against an English lane when June has lavished her wild roses and her honeysuckle on the sunkissed hedgerows. And for the matter of risk, a modern city infested with motor-cars is the "valley of the shadow of death" compared with an average part of the tropics of Central America. There are, of course, real dangers, but one usually survives them, probably for the same reason that a dyspeptic lives so long, because one takes care. The annual death-roll in Paris, London or New York from motor-cars is far higher than the yearly toll of native lives taken by the serpents of Yucatan.

Yet the country is famous for its snakes, but you do not see them. In all our wanderings and campings in forests, in all our often foolhardy explorations of weird caves and pot-holes, so frequented by snakes as sleeping-places, we only saw seven, and none of them were large. The most exciting adventure we had was in one of the islands. We were following a very narrow Indian trail single file, when the one of us who was leading ran his face right into a snake which was stretched across the path at the height of one's eyes, its tail curled round a shrub on one side, its head round one on the other side. It was a tree-climbing species, a bright green, and looked evil enough, but was probably harmless. We had but half an hour before seen the snake the Mayan Indians call uolpoch (p.r.o.nounced wolpoach), the deadliest of all New World serpents, perhaps the deadliest in the world. It was among the leaves at the side of the path, and wriggled away as we approached. It is about two or at most three feet long, of a dirty brown-grey colour with the belly a trifle lighter in tint, and is remarkable as having both ends blunt like the slow-worm. It is said to be the only snake known to attack before it is attacked, and is specially feared as being most active at night when it wanders around. Another of its accomplishments is an extraordinary power of leaping: it is alleged to be capable of a jump of six feet high. We do not, however, guarantee this serpentine high jump, as we never, thank goodness, saw it perform.

The uolpoch's bite is always fatal, and the Indians dread the little blunt-nosed reptile, which sleeps the sunny hours away hidden in hollows in rocks or in ditches.

The rattlesnake is very common in Yucatan, especially in the south and more marshy portions of the Peninsula. The python, too, is met with in the lower-lying forests, though we did not have the luck to see one.

They never, however, attain the size of the monsters which infest the valley of the Amazon and its tributaries. There are several of the _Elaps_ genus of serpents in Yucatan, the most common being _Elaps corallina_, or coral-snake, ringed with red and black. He is a pretty fellow but highly venomous, and shows much fight if provoked. A friend of ours trod on one which was asleep in the cab of an engine, of all places in the world. He luckily had on top-boots, or probably he would not have lived to tell the tale, for the little beast was round on him and made a deep mark on the leather in a second. The _Spilotes Salvini_ (Greek [Greek: spilos], a spot), a large but quite harmless serpent, is of spotted black with a yellowish belly, and attains almost pythonic dimensions, the average specimens being about six and a half feet long.

Another harmless serpent family, the _Dipsadidae_ (so called from the Greek [Greek: dipsa], thirst, in allusion to an ancient superst.i.tion that this genus of snakes caused a mortal thirst, to which Sh.e.l.ley refers in his "Prometheus Unbound": "He thirsted, as one bit by a dipsas"), is represented in Yucatan by the _Dipsas splendida_, a tree-climbing reptile with bright mottled skin, averaging two to two and a half feet in length. It is chiefly active at nights, when it climbs in search of the insects which form its food.

In the larger mammals, particularly the carnivora, the Peninsula is notably poor. Practically the only formidable creature is the jaguar, which would, however, never deserve Bottom's immortal dictum anent the king of carnivora, for it is in no sense "a terrible wild-fowl." _Felis onca_, to give the animal the dignity of his full official t.i.tle, is most like the leopard or panther of the Old World. He is of a tawny colour with spots which differ, however, from the true leopard inasmuch as they are ocellated, _i.e._ eyed, black with a tawny eye of colour in the centre, or are broken up into rosettes of black on a tawny ground.

Full-grown specimens measure between four and five feet in length with a tail of some two feet. In Yucatan the jaguar is distinctly cowardly, and will never attack unless in a corner or when attacked. We met one when wandering one afternoon in the woods around Chichen, and though we were unarmed, it fled incontinently and climbed a tree. This they are very fond of doing, especially when pursued by dogs. The natives face them with the machete as their only weapon, and show much courage often in tracking them to the caves where they shelter. While even the biggest jaguar will avoid an encounter with man, they are bold in their night attacks upon cattle and pigs. At one settlement on the east coast which we visited, thirteen porkers had disappeared in as many nights, and though a hunt was organised in one expedition of which we took part, the "tiger," as the natives insist on calling the jaguar, had not been found when we left.

Allied to the _Felis onca_ are two other "cats," the _Felis pardalis_ and _Felis concolor_ or puma, which are both found in Yucatan and the neighbouring parts of Central America. The former is far more rare than the jaguar, and somewhat smaller, measuring seldom more than three feet in length of body, with a two-foot tail. It is of a greyish-tawny colour and is more like a wild cat than a leopard, its tail striped and coat marked with small black spots. The puma is of a uniform greyish or reddish-grey, and is between three and four feet in length. The young are born marked with dark-brown spots in three rows on the back, and the whole coat marked sporadically. The puma is greatly hated by stock-breeders because of its habit of killing but not eating. One puma has been known to kill many animals in a night, just lapping a little of the blood of each and then leaving the carcase for a fresh prey.

The creature which is at once the largest and least offensive in Yucatan is the tapir, a genus of _Ungulata_ or hoofed animals, in general appearance looking much what one could imagine a cross between a rhinoceros and a wild pig would be like. Indeed naturalists incline to the belief that the tapir is somewhat closely allied to the former animal. There are four known species, three American--viz. _Tapirus terrestris_, _T. Bairdi_, and _T. Dowi_, and one Asiatic, _T.

malaya.n.u.s_. Though the species differ somewhat in size, the tapir is usually about the size of a small a.s.s. The body, which in the adult is of a uniform deep brown, though the young are marked with yellowish spots and stripings, is short, stout and clumsy, with thick legs ending in four small hoofs on the fore feet and three on the hind. It has small piggy eyes, and its most characteristic feature is a queer flexible snout prolonged some inches beyond the jaw, but apparently without the prehensile powers of the elephant's trunk. The tapir loves water, and when attacked by a jaguar will, where possible, take to a river or lake, diving and plunging. It is quite inoffensive and never attacks man, but when at bay will give ugly bites. It is very powerful, and has so thick a skin that it can force its way through the densest forest. The commonest tapir is the South American one, the _T. terrestris_, but this is not found north of the Panama Isthmus. The tapir of Yucatan and Guatemala is _T. Dowi_. This with _T. Bairdi_ is generally regarded as generically separate from other tapirs, and they are scientifically termed _Elasmognathus_. All tapirs are vegetarians, living on the shoots of trees, on fruits and seeds; but they will eat almost any substance which they come across. Thus pieces of wood, clay, and stones have been found in their stomachs.

The liveliest sport in Yucatan is derived from the peccary, a kind of swine, belonging to the genus _Dicotyles_, of which there are two species. The name is probably from an American Indian word which is cited by Pennant as _paquiras_. The peccary is the only indigenous representative of the Old World _Suidae_ or swine in the New World, and both its species are found in Yucatan--_D. torquatus_ or _tajacu_, the Texan or collared peccary, and _D. l.a.b.i.atus_, the white-lipped peccary.

The range of the former is from Arkansas to Patagonia, while the latter are restricted to Central America and as far south as Brazil. The generic name is from the Greek [Greek: dikotylos] ([Greek: di] two, and [Greek: kotyle], a hollow), and was given the peccaries by Cuvier in allusion to a curious glandular organ on the back which was regarded by old travellers as a second navel. This gland secretes a foul-smelling liquid, and unless quickly removed after the animal has been killed, taints the flesh, making it almost uneatable. We hunted peccary and eat them. The meat has a rather rich, spicy taste, like stuffed veal, and is fairly tough. The two species breed freely together, but the true _D.

l.a.b.i.ati_ are far the fiercer of the two, go about in small herds and are known to attack man and even the jaguar. The Yucatecans hunt them with dogs, and seldom does an expedition return without leaving two or three of the latter dead in the woods, ripped up by the short tusks of the peccary boars. The animals make their home in natural hollows and caves, or in holes beneath large trees. In appearance they are like pigs, but the bristles are coa.r.s.er and variegated somewhat like a porcupine's.

They have fewer teeth than the ordinary pig--viz. thirty-eight as against forty-four--and a very short tail.

The deer of Yucatan are quite small, about the size of our fallow-deer.

They are of two species, _Cervus virginia.n.u.s_ and _Cariacas toltecus_, the latter quite small. You see little or nothing of either in North-Eastern Yucatan, but on the southern sierras there are a good many in the thick woodland. Down south, too, but still further south, you find the monkey most frequenting this part of Central America, of the genus _Mycetes_, familiarly known as "the howler" or "howling monkey,"

in allusion to its strange, weird, and very loud cries, which can be heard miles off. This peculiar vocal power is due to an extraordinary development of the larynx, the hyoid bone in which is very much enlarged and excavated, thus forming a hollow drum which acts as a reverberator.

The species of _Mycetes_ found in Yucatan and Guatemala is _M. villosus_ or _ursinus_. The _Mycetinae_ are the largest monkeys of America, nearly three feet in body length, with long prehensile tails. They are quite black, and are almost entirely arboreal in habits, living in the trees.

The Indians regard their flesh as a great luxury, and white men agree that it is very palatable. Another monkey, rare in Yucatan, but very common in Guatemala, is the spider-monkey or sapajou (genus _Ateles_), of which the species _A. vellerosus_ is the commonest.

Of smaller mammals there are a good number in Yucatan. There is the coati, known to naturalists as _Nasua narica_, but always called by the natives _pisote_. It is closely related to the rac.o.o.ns, but has a longer body and tail and a thin and flexible snout, hence the generic name _Nasua_ (Latin _nasus_, nose). It is of a dark-brown colour, and is thus distinguished from its Brazilian cousin the red ring-tailed coati (_Nasua rufa_). It is carnivorous, and is particularly fond of the large lizards, the iguanas, which abound throughout the Peninsula. Birds, too, fall prey to them. They are distinctly attractive-looking little creatures and are readily tamed. We saw a pair in a courtyard of a restaurant in Merida, which eagerly made friends with the guests in return for a piece of meat or fruit. The Indians relish their flesh greatly, and the animals have little chance if they are rash enough to venture near a village. Sitting one night in the wonderful tropical moonlight at a lonely settlement, suddenly an indescribable din of dogs yelping and Indians shouting arose. We really thought the place was about to be raided when we saw the women as well as the men and boys arm themselves with cudgels and make for the wood. A yelp or two and a piteous cry, and then with huge delight an Indian rushed back with the still quivering furry body of the poor coati. A fire was built, and in a very few minutes the creature had been dried into that most unappetising mummification in which all Indian cooking of meat ends. The pisote tastes much like an old rabbit.

Talking of rabbits, these ubiquitous rodents are found in Yucatan, but in no great numbers. Hares are unknown. The common rac.o.o.n (_Procyon lotor_) is found, but there are no crab-eating rac.o.o.ns (_Procyon cancrivorous_) in Yucatan: these are restricted to South America proper.

The rac.o.o.n eats fruits and is fond of young maize; but he is also carnivorous, and will attack fowls, biting their heads off and sucking their blood. He feeds, too, on grubs and frogs, but he most enjoys sugar-cane, to crops of which he is very destructive. In Yucatan is found the grey fox of the States (_Urocyon virginia.n.u.s_). A pretty little fellow is the grey squirrel (_Sciurus carolinensis_), which has a marvellously bushy tail. A species of the agouti (_Dasyprocta punctata_ or _acouchy_) is found in Yucatan, a guinea-pig-like creature, the size of a small rabbit, which when disturbed gives pig-like grunts.

There are many bats, the commonest being the so-called bulldog bat, in allusion to the bulldog-like expression due to the pendulosity of the skin around the snout and jaw. A genus of armadillos (_Tatusia novemcincta_) usually called _Dasypus novemcinctus_, the only armadillo found in the United States, is fairly common in the woods of Yucatan.

While writing of Mammalia we must not forget to mention that curious creature the manatee, which is found fairly plentifully in the creeks and shallow inlets around the coast of the Peninsula. In Guatemala and Southern Yucatan it is called _Vaca de Agua_ (Sea-Cow). Its scientific name is _Manatus america.n.u.s_ or _australis_. In shape it is something like a small whale; but it belongs to a different order, though it was once believed to be a herbivorous cetacean. It is some ten or twelve feet in length with a stout naked body, fish-shaped, with no trace of hind limbs, and ending in a wide shovel-shaped tail. The fore limbs are paddles, on which there are rudimentary nails; the eyes and ears are small; the neck short and thick. They live in either fresh or salt water, but never far from land or far from sea. They feed on sea-gra.s.ses and never leave the water. Their flesh, which is white and sweet-tasting, is relished by the natives, who hunt them as did their ancestors, usually with harpoon, for their fat and leather as well as for the meat.

We have already spoken of the snakes in Yucatan, and now we must say a few words as to other reptiles. Yucatan is the happy hunting ground for the largest land lizard known to Natural History, the iguana. His prevailing colour is grey, shading to a light green with a lighter tint on the belly, and he has black markings crosswise his whole length to his tail and a crest of spines down his back. The creature is grotesquely ugly with his great pouched under-jaw and eyes snake-like in their smallness, and as you often meet specimens upwards of three feet long (they are known to attain five feet or more in length), one is apt to hasten to the conclusion that they are fearsome foes. As a matter of fact they are the most inoffensive of creatures unless molested, feeding entirely on a vegetable diet. But they can and will bite, if annoyed, and we came across cases of Indians whose fingers had been bitten off, though of course there is no venom like that of a snake in the iguana's teeth. They are arboreal in habits, but the Yucatecan iguanas love most to make their homes in the ruined facades and roofs of Mayan palaces. We hardly ever explored a building without one of these great clumsy reptiles bustling out of its hiding-place and scurrying up the palace front or the falling stairways, looking for all the world like a gargoyle animated of a sudden. The flesh of these lizards is much appreciated by the natives, and tastes like chicken. There are a great quant.i.ty of smaller lizards in Yucatan; in fact, as you walk through the woods the undergrowth, especially in the sunnier patches, seems positively alive with them. Browns, greens, and yellows; mottled, striped, and spotted; some of them are really very pretty, and all of them quite harmless.

There are plenty of alligators to be found round the coasts, particularly on the east, where they shelter in shallow muddy streams and in the mangrove swamps, or bask on the landward side of the islets which so often only lie a few yards from the mainland. The alligator is a savage beast, more savage it is said than his congener the crocodile, and will take the offensive often without provocation. If anything, they look more repulsive in their habitat than they do in a Zoo, where they are surrounded by the softening influences of civilisation and the sweet simplicity of a cemented tank. We heard a story worth quoting, as at once ill.u.s.trating the brute's ferocity and the courage of the Indian.

Down in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec two Indians were floundering in a swamp when one suddenly disappeared into a hole, to utter in a second a howl of agony, while the water around him became tinged with blood. Down in the hole an alligator had seized him by the leg, biting it off at the knee. Without a moment's hesitation his comrade leapt into the pool and, planting his foot firmly on the lizard's head, thus kept it from making a second attack while he helped the exhausted, bleeding man to scramble out.

The average alligator in Yucatan measures between seven and nine feet, though the one typical of the genus, the _Alligator lucius_ or _mississippiensis_ of the United States, attains a length of seventeen or eighteen feet. In Guatemala and the Rio Hondu a special species is found known as the _Alligator punctulatus_. Alligators differ from true crocodiles in having a shorter and flatter head, cavities in the upper jaw into which the long teeth of the under-jaw fit, and feet much less webbed. It is a very common mistake to believe that the true crocodile is unknown in the New World. As a matter of fact, a typical one, the _Crocodilus america.n.u.s_, long confused with the alligator, has recently been identified in Florida and the West Indies. The alligator feeds chiefly on fish, and his voracity is such that he lives on very strained relations with the inhabitants of his fishy world, which avoid him with the same fanatical earnestness with which a Kaffir avoids his mother-in-law. But the alligator is more than a glutton; he is a cannibal, and does not, unfortunately, even respect the family circle.

His wife has to be very careful to put the children to bed before he returns from his wanderings, for if he catches sight of them or gets the least chance he instantly eats them. The female alligator lays a great quant.i.ty of large eggs, dropping them in the sand, where they are left to be hatched by the sun's heat. As many as sixty eggs may be found in one nest arranged in separate layers.

We have spoken of the turtles which are found in huge quant.i.ties around the coasts and in the islands. There are any number of their land cousins, the tortoises, in the woods of Yucatan, most of them quite small, among them the box tortoise (_Cinostemon leucostomum_), that queer little reptile who has a kind of front door which he slams in your face, shutting his head in so that there is no way of arguing with him.

Frogs and toads there are in plenty, too, some of the latter being very large; but we must get on to the insects. Of these the most fearsome are the tarantulas, the commonly used but incorrect name for the largest spider known, the _Mygale Hentzi_, a black hairy creature with body about the size of a two-s.h.i.+lling piece and black hairy legs two inches long. The bite of these spiders is really dangerous, although seldom fatal to adults. A friend of ours was bitten in the wrist by one some three years ago. His arm became seriously inflamed and terribly painful, and could not be used for some months; and even now he still suffers pain at times in the neighbourhood of the wound. The ruins in Yucatan are the happy hunting ground for these monsters, which will even attack small birds. Scorpions are very common, too, hiding by day under stones or logs or in the crevices of house walls. There are two kinds, a black and a white, though the latter is more yellow than white. We never saw any large specimens, but they are said to reach seven or eight inches in length Their sting is distinctly dangerous, and we heard of cases of Indians dying through it.

The jigger or chigoe (to give it the more correct native name from which the first is a corruption), that detestable flea which burrows beneath the toenails and there lays its eggs, is common in Yucatan, especially on the east coast. It closely resembles the common flea in form, though it is much smaller. The sandal-shod natives are particularly liable to it, and of the Mexican troops at Chan Santa Cruz a large percentage have one or two toes missing. In the south of the Peninsula you find that curious insect the Praying Mantis, so called in allusion to the att.i.tude of its forelegs, which are held as are hands in prayer. These creatures wage remorseless war on one another, and fight until the stronger literally pulls its foe's head off. This was actually witnessed by a friend of ours.

That detestable insect the centipede is common in Yucatan, and not the harmless type to which one is accustomed in an English garden, but a formidable creature half a foot or more long. You find the _Scolopendra castaniceps_ of a greenish colour with a chestnut-tinted head averaging six inches, and in the south the giant centipede (_Scolopendra gigas_) which is sometimes a foot long. Humboldt, in his _Personal Narrative_, says that he saw Indian children pull centipedes out of the ground and eat them; but the present-day Indians fear and avoid them as much as they do a scorpion. There is no doubt that their bite is very poisonous, and even often dangerous.

The ants of Yucatan are wonderful, except when you have the misfortune to get them on you, when you forget to admire them in the torrents of blasphemy which their bites evoke. We came across four types, a pitch-black small tree-ant, which appeared to live princ.i.p.ally beneath the shelter of the bark of rotting trees; a big yellow fellow often nearly an inch long, a large black ant, and a smaller reddish black ant.

The third kind, a broad-mandibled digging ant, called by the Indians _zay_ (p.r.o.nounced _tzay_), infests the woods of Yucatan to an almost incredible degree, honeycombing the roadways to such an extent in some places that you sink almost to your knee in the loose red earth.

Sometimes in the woods you will come across patches an acre or two in extent of loosened earth dotted here and there with hillocks thrown up by these tiny excavators. They carry out their operations, too, among the ruins; but their work is distinctly unscientific, and many interesting memorials of the ancient Mayans have been destroyed by these insect vandals.

More than this, they actually make paths through the woods. As you follow an Indian trail you will of a sudden come to a place where it is crossed by quite a distinct path, traceable for yards. Sometimes you actually find them travelling on these paths. One evening in the woods near Occeh we came across a procession of ants or, to write correctly, two processions of ants; for there was one set going in "follow-my-leader" style across the road one way, and another set going the other way. It was interesting to see that the insects never stepped out of the ranks. One set were carrying each a piece of leaf which they held up over them (it was about half an inch square) like a huge sail.

Some of them were literally staggering under the weight of the pieces of leaf, but they never dropped them. The other set were returning into the wood "empty-handed" to get fresh loads. For a long time we watched these ordered ranks, and we had the curiosity to follow them into the wood, where we found them actually at work on a leafy shrub, chewing off the pieces and climbing down with them, and then without the least confusion taking their places in the marching line of the loaded party. It is possible that these ants are to be identified with those called by Henry Walter Bates (_Naturalist on the Amazons_: 1863) the umbrella ant of Brazil, which he says "thatches its large mansion (sometimes 40 yards in circ.u.mference and 2 feet high) with circles of leaf cut with accurate precision from coffee and orange trees, which they oftentimes strip bare to carry out their bold architectural design." It seemed to us, however, more likely that, as was observed by Thomas Belt (_Naturalist in Nicaragua_: 1874), the leaves are gathered as provisions and are stored till their decay generates a fungus upon which the ant feeds.

The c.o.c.kroaches of Yucatan are truly tropical, and grow to a great length. We saw some between two and three inches long. The little village stores throughout Yucatan are infested with these pests, and one day when purchasing some bananas, on the storekeeper lifting up the lid of the wooden bin in which the fruit was kept, it sounds incredible, but one could scarcely see the fruit, such hundreds of them filled the bin.

In the ruins you constantly find hornets' nests hanging against the walls almost like swallows' nests, and if they happen to be "at home"

and do set about you, the only thing is to run. Yucatan is very rich in dragonflies. They seem of almost all colours. Those we noticed most were one of electric blue, one of gra.s.s green, and one, apparently rare, almost red. At nights the trees are alight with fireflies. As we sat in the clearing in our forest home on Cozumel, it looked as if armies of Indians with lanterns were concentrating on us from all points of the belt of dark woodland. The light these insects give is undoubtedly strong, though we had not the luck to see, as did Stephens at Palenque, "'lightning-bugs,' four of which together threw a brilliant light for several yards around, and by the light of a single one we read distinctly the finely printed pages of an American newspaper." No account of a Yucatecan night would be complete without mentioning the wonderful chorus of crickets which sing from sunset until the eastern sky fades into the grey of dawn. It is literally a chorus, for there must be thousands of the insects contributing to the endless serenading of the lady crickets.

An hour after the sun is up and the dew has disappeared before the rapidly increasing heat of the wonderful tropic suns.h.i.+ne, the Yucatecan woodlands become beautiful with those most exquisite of all G.o.d's creatures, the b.u.t.terflies. There was a great deal in Yucatan which was very disappointing; there was much which was actually heartbreaking; but however footsore, tired, and hungry we were, we found it impossible not to momentarily forget our troubles in our admiration for these flying triumphs of Heaven's paint-box. Alas! we are not possessed of any scientific knowledge, and all that this chapter attempts is to indicate "the birds, beasts and fishes" one sees in travelling through the Peninsula, and thus we cannot give the scientific names for these marvellous insects. Perhaps it is as well, for it is really a kind of desecration to label some fairy form of amber and blue with a hendecasyllabic name, the p.r.o.nunciation of which can only be mastered after months of practice.

Most beautiful of all was a monster of sky blue, all four wings framed with a delicate border of black. He must have measured five inches from wing-point to wing-point. Exquisite, too, were the striped b.u.t.terflies: some striped scarlet and black, some white and black, some yellow and black. The daintiness of these combinations was past all description.

The forest paths were bright, too, with wonders of yellow; amber and orange, sulphur-tinted and palest lemon, huge b.u.t.terflies fluttered before our horses, such miracles of Nature's painting as made the woodland seem a fairyland of colour. One of the commonest (it seems an insult to use the adjective, it was so beautiful) of Yucatan's b.u.t.terflies was one with body and inner portions of the wings all black and the outer parts a brilliant scarlet, a combination giving it as it flew the appearance of a daintily slender bobbin or reel of vermilion.

And amid all this riot of colour were some quite as enchanting in the Quaker-like sobriety of their tints. One specially struck us: a triumph of silver greys and browns, a veritable incarnation of Autumn. But enough! Neither glowing epithets nor the dry-as-dust names given them by entomologists can do justice to Yucatan's b.u.t.terflies: you must go and see them for yourself to realise their beauty.

One of the most startlingly beautiful birds in Yucatan is the cardinal bird, a large finch of a gorgeous red even to its beak, its face alone being black around the base of the bill and on the upper throat. But the full glories of its scarlet coat are the prerogative of the male, for the female is a far duller colour. Species of the bird are common in the warmer parts of the States, where it is often known as the Virginia Nightingale, in allusion to its powers of song. The Yucatecan specimen, about a foot long, makes a wonderful spectacle as it flashes through the blaze of suns.h.i.+ne.

But if Yucatan has to share her cardinal bird with the more southern States of America, she can claim to have all to herself, and the Central American countries neighbouring her, perhaps one of the most beautiful birds in the world, the _Meleagris ocellata_, the ocellated turkey, so called in allusion to the _ocelli_ or eyes, much like those of a peac.o.c.k, marking its plumage, which is of blue, brown, and gold. Its bare head is a deep blue studded with caruncles of an orange colour, and it has no ugly dewlap as has the common turkey, than which it is much smaller. This wonderful bird is fairly common in Yucatan, but is very shy and keeps to the woods. A bird far more common, and a vivid contrast in the sobriety of its feathering to this glorious fowl, is a species of guan (_Ortalis vetula maccalli_), known in Spanish America as the _chachalaca_ in allusion to its astoundingly loud cry. They are about the size of a hen pheasant, the wings and body of a brown shading to a greeny grey with a lighter grey-brown belly. They may be said to be the great game birds of Yucatan as far as eating goes, and their flesh tastes much like pheasant. They are pretty birds until they speak, and one often sees them tame in the Indian villages. Of the same family of gallinaceous birds (_Cracidae_) to which the _chachalaca_ belongs, the cura.s.sows and _hoccos_ found in Yucatan are members. Both the red cura.s.sow and the globose cura.s.sow are fairly common; the natives call them _kambul_. Another type of cura.s.sow is the latter-mentioned hocco, a name said to be a native word in Guiana. This bird we shot on the east coast. It is a magnificent creature as big as a large turkey, feathered in gold and brown, its head crested. Partridge and quail are said to be plentiful, but we did not come across them.

One of the commonest yet one of the prettiest birds in the Peninsula is a jay (_Cyanocitta yucatanica_) which goes about in small flocks. They are about the size of a large blackbird, but with a longer tail. The head and the belly are black and the back, wings, and tail are of a beautiful electric blue. The legs are yellow, and, like the English blackbird, the male has a yellow beak and the female a black one. The Mayans call them _tchel_ and are always keen to kill them, for they are very destructive to the crops; but nothing could well exceed the beauty of a dozen of them darting from treetop to treetop in the early morning suns.h.i.+ne.

Of hawks there are many species. One large black one found in Cozumel is rare, but a common one which we specially noticed in that island is a beautifully marked bird of black and brown which is said to belong to the same division of hawks as the hobby-falcon of Europe. It is about a foot long with a fairly long tail. The curious point about it was its astounding boldness. It would sit on a tree a few yards ahead of you, and when you came up and stood beneath it, refuse to be scared away. On the eastern beach of Cozumel one of these birds settled on a fallen tree near us, and refused to go although, of course without any desire to actually hurt it, we pelted it with small pebbles. This hawk has a curiously insistent and weirdly plaintive cry, with which the woods of Cozumel echo all day. We never saw it actually strike at small birds, and certainly its warning scream was calculated to give the most careless finch a good chance of escape.

Of owls there was one of the large wood variety, and there are said to be two peculiar to the country, neither of them much more than six inches long, of a generally tawny colour and lighter on the bellies. In parrots Yucatan is rich, the finest being the white-crowned parrot, its plumage being green, blue, red, white, and yellow. The red-and-blue macaw is known, though rare; but the woods are everywhere full of the green parrot or parakeet, dainty little creatures who usually go about in pairs, but sometimes are seen flocking and are for ever screaming and chattering as they fly.

You see the common American kingfisher, some twelve inches long with plumage of blue, white, spotted and barred, the head crested, sitting sometimes above the cenotes. Of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs there are several varieties, the commonest appearing to be the red-headed or crested woodp.e.c.k.e.r. If you have luck (we did not have it), you can see in the Yucatecan woodland the wonderful _Trogon resplendens_, scientifically a.s.sociated with the family of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. There are some fifty species of Trogons, but the most remarkable is the Yucatecan one, the Quetzal, a sacred bird in Central America, the plumage of which is a gorgeous golden green, its tail being in the male nearly three feet long, though the bird is about the size of a pigeon. This Trogon in the sheen of its plumage almost rivals the beauty of the humming-birds. Of the latter there are many to be seen in Yucatan, but it really needs a poet to describe these winged jewels of the woodland. As we sat on the verandah at Chichen prosaically eating breakfast, amid the pink San Diego blossoms which cl.u.s.tered round the house was a perpetual whirr of

"Pinions of pale green, melting to black By bronze and russet pa.s.sages."

One really is obliged to fall back upon quotation in speaking of these tiny creatures, which seem veritably "plumaged from rainbows."

We have spoken of the sleek little _piches_ which chattered in the trees of the plaza at Vera Cruz. There were any number of these in Yucatan, and a much larger black bird, probably akin, infesting gardens and distinguished by the most liquid and mellifluous note it is possible to imagine. Swallows, too, though they seemed somewhat larger than the ordinary swallow, were common everywhere; while a bird, which we think belonged to the cuckoo family, often startled us when at work on the ruins by a reiterated whistle which sounded like mocking laughter dying away in a choking spasm of mirth.

The coasts of the Peninsula are rich with seafowl, so many and so varied that it would need a skilled ornithologist and many pages to chronicle them accurately. There are duck of all kinds, mallard, teal, widgeon; wild geese, bitterns, herons, snipe, sandpipers, plovers, curlews, and gulls galore. The bays and inlets are beautified by the stately ibis, snowy white or slate-grey. Flamingoes are rarer; and indeed a flamingo standing is not an object of beauty, for he is altogether too long in the legs. Moreover his beautiful pink plumage is seen at its best when he is in flight. As hideous as they are common are the brown pelicans. In their way they are as detestable as the zopilotes which we were at pains to describe in our first chapter, though their habits are not so filthy.

We really have no s.p.a.ce to say much of the fishes (pelicans naturally suggest fis.h.i.+ness); but we ought to say that the brightest jewel in the fishy crown of the Gulf of Mexico, at least from the gastronomic point of view, is that fish which rejoices in the name of Red Snapper. At all times and in all places you can get it. It appears to have no close season, and whether in the smart restaurants of Mexico or Merida or in the little coast cabins of the fis.h.i.+ng Indians, you eat it, or try to till nauseated. The Indians are clever fishermen, and catch with both hook and net, but their most picturesque method is spearing. They paddle their dug-out into shallow waters, stand on the end of the canoe, and thrust a spear at the fish. This spear has a detachable point to which a cord is fastened. They scarcely ever miss, and the struggling prey is hauled in by the string. We saw a man land half a dozen big fish in little more than as many minutes. The natives of Chiapas shoot the fish from the end of the canoe with bow and arrow.

If a hundred people who have not travelled, or whose travels have been confined to the typical Rhine, Switzerland and Riviera tours of modern life, were asked what was their idea of a primeval forest in the tropics, eighty per cent. at least would declare for a woodland notable for giant trees beside which the forests of civilised countries would seem mere park enclosures. Nothing could be further from the truth. The average primeval forest in the tropics, of which the boundless woodlands of Eastern Yucatan are a fair example, are disappointing in the extreme from the very fact that, though dense to a degree that is heartbreaking, you never see really n.o.ble trees. One of the largest trees in Yucatan is the sapota (_Achras sapota_). This is an evergreen with thick s.h.i.+ny leaves, and is said to sometimes reach a height of a hundred feet, but we cannot say that we ever saw one so high. It is from the sapota that there is obtained the chicle, the milky juice of the tree which forms the basis of all American chewing-gums. The chicleros, as the cutters are called, climb the tree, cut broad arrow-shaped grooves through the bark pointing groundward, the shaft of the arrows making a drainage groove down the full length of the tree, a vessel being placed at the foot under this groove to catch the sap. But the Mayans do not care about chicle. They like the sapota because it produces a fruit of which they are pa.s.sionately fond. And no wonder, for it is really very pleasant eating. About the size of a small apple and the colour of a medlar, the inside is a reddish-brown pulp, which has a delicious flavour.