The species which is most common is a black snake (constrictor) of large size, being frequently eight or ten feet in length, and three or four inches in diameter.

These snakes are treated not only with forbearance but kindness by the planters, and in return render important service on the sugar plantations, being most persevering and successful RAT CATCHERS; rats are abundant, and exceedingly destructive to the sugar cane, on which they subsist during a considerable portion of the year.

None of the serpents in Grenada are poisonous, but in some of the islands, particularly St.Lucia, there exists a snake which resembles the rattlesnake in the ferocity of its attacks and the deadly venom of its bite.

Having no rattles, no warning of danger is given to the unwary traveller until the snake darts from its ambush and inflicts a fatal wound; hence the name given to this dangerous reptile is the LANCE DE FER.
In penetrating those mountain gorges, and climbing those mountain ridges, steep and thickly covered with forest trees and vines of many kinds, and of luxuriant growth, I sometimes passed hours without meeting any sign of life, except the flitting and hum of the humming-bird, and the loud and musical coo of the ramee.

That mountain wilderness seemed the chosen home of the humming-bird.