Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 edition. Excerpt:... CHAPTER V. ANIMAL LIFE. General Considerations--Mammals--Warracaba Tigers--The Colours of Birds--Bird-notes--Chief Forms of Birds--Scenes of Bird-Life--Reptiles--Alligators--Iguanas -- Snakes--Turtles--Fish--The Dangers of Bathing -- Insect Plagues -- Butterflies --Beetles --Ants--.Wasps-- Mosquitoes-- Sandflies -- The Mosquito Worm--Jiggers -- Bush-Ticks -- Spiders--Centipedes--Scorpions. In a tropical country so varied as regards physical features as British Guiana, and so sparingly inhabited by man, it will naturally be supposed that animal life, both in its beautiful and its baneful forms, is very abundant. This is indeed the case; but yet animal life is not in any marked degree prominent, nor, with the exception perhaps of insect ravages, is it in any way troublesome. It is not surprising that the ordinary colonist, who generally lives in the more inhabited parts of the coast land, should not see much wild animal life around him; but the traveller in the interior, even if he is in search of wild beasts, cannot avoid a feeling of surprise that so few of these present themselves unsought to his notice, and that he has to search so diligently before he finds others. The untravelled man, living in temperate climates, while he overcolours in his mind the picture of the brilliant birds, insects, and animals, thinks with horror, not only of the powerful savage animals-- which are probably represented in his mind by beasts of prey and by gigantic or venomous serpents--but also of the thousand annoying insects and other such small cattle, which, as he imagines, everywhere lie in wait for the traveller, or even the dweller, in the tropics. If these imaginations were; 'TROPICAL FALLACY' OF ANIMALS. 107 anywhere near the truth, it would indeed...