THE island of Puerto Rico, is situated in the Caribbean sea and Atlantic ocean, between the island of Hayti or St. Domingo, and the Virgin Islands. It occupies a space between 65° 30ʹ and 67° 45ʹ of west longitude, and between 18° and 18° 35ʹ of north latitude. In shape, it is nearly a parallelogram, its length being about 120 miles by forty in breadth. Columbus discovered this island during his second voyage, in the year 1493. Juan Ponce de Leon, of whom we have spoken in the description of Florida, colonized Puerto Rico, in 1509; when he subjugated the country; the native Indians were at that time very numerous, but have since disappeared. Puerto Rico is an important island to the Spaniards; its productions are very valuable to their European commerce, and the climate is more healthy and temperate than in the other islands of the Caribbean seas. The mountains of Puerto Rico, are not of any very great altitude, but form a beautiful feature of the landscape, their gently undulating surface composing picturesque and well watered valleys. The rivers are of no size, but agreeably diversify the picture; and being very numerous, are exceedingly useful to the purposes of agriculture. The interior, and part of the seashore to the north, is still covered with the original forests, in which roam large wild dogs; these dogs are the remains of a race brought from Spain, by the first conquerors of the island, to assist in hunting down the natives, who fled for protection to the fastnesses of the interior. These forests also abound with parrots, pigeons and other birds, peculiar to the West India Islands, as well as with land-crabs, which are as numerous here as in any of the Caribbean Isles; on whose flesh the wild dogs are supposed to subsist. The natural history of these crabs is highly singular; they are the dread of colonists proceeding to the West Indies; who are told, that should they die of the fevers so prevalent in that region, their bodies will not rest long in the earth to which it is committed; as the land-crabs burrowing to the grave, soon consume them. At certain seasons of the year, these singular animals, who greatly resemble the sea-crabs in shape and manner of moving, leave the mountains in which they have formed their burrows, and move in immense cavalcades down to the sea-coast, for the purpose of depositing their young in the waters. At this period nothing arrests their progress, as they move continually in the same line; if they meet with a wall, they climb up one side and down the other; and the clattering noise produced by the claws is said to be surprising. After depositing their young, they return to their haunts, in the same order, and are followed by the young crabs, as soon as they attain sufficient strength to perform the journey.