Cuba has been justly styled the garden of the world, perpetual summer smiling upon its favored shores, and its natural wealth almost baffling the capacity of estimation. The waters which surround it, as we have already intimated, abound with a variety of fishes, whose bright colors, emulating the tints of precious stones and the prismatic hues of the rainbow, astonish the eye of the stranger. Stately trees of various species, the most conspicuous being the royal palm, rear their luxuriant foliage against the azure heavens, along the sheltered bays, by the way-side, on the swells of the haciendas, delighting the eye of the traveller, and diversifying the ever-charming face of the tropical landscape. Through the woods and groves flit a variety of birds, whose dazzling colors defy the palette of the artist. Here the loquacious parrot utters his harsh natural note; there the red flamingo stands patiently by the shore of the lagoon, watching in the waters, dyed by the reflection of his plumage, for his unconscious prey. It would require a volume to describe the vegetable, animal and mineral kingdom of Cuba. Among the most familiar birds, and those the names of which even the casual observer is apt to learn, are the Cuba robin, the blue-bird, the cat-bird, the Spanish woodpecker, the gaudy-plumed parrot, the pedoreva, with its red throat and breast and its pea-green head and body. There is also a great variety of wild pigeons, blue, gray and white; the English ladybird, as it is called, with a blue head and scarlet breast, and green and white back; the indigo-bird, the golden-winged woodpecker, the ibis, the flamingo, and many smaller species, like the humming-bird. Parrots settle on the sour orange trees when the fruit is ripe, and fifty may be secured by a net at a time. The Creoles stew and eat them as we do the pigeon; the flesh is rather tough, and as there are plenty of fine water and marsh birds about the lagoons, which are most tender and palatable, one is at a loss to account for the taste that leads the people to eat the parrot. The brown pelican is very plenty on the sea-coast, like the gull off our own shores, and may be seen at all times sailing lazily over the sea, and occasionally dipping for fish. Here, as among other tropical regions, and even in some southern sections of this country, the lazy-looking bald-headed vulture is protected by law, being a sort of natural scavenger or remover of carrion.