TROPICAL BIRDS AND FLOWERS. pours "IN tropical climates, where brilliant and varied colors have been granted to the birds and flowers, song has been denied to the one and fragrance to the other." This is one of those flippant generalisations*, originally made without investigation, which people are fond of repeating and perpetuating without inquiry. The groves and fields of the sunny isle of Jamaica ring with the melody of beautiful birds. In the lone forests of the mountain heights, the glass-eyed merle forth a rich and continued song; and that mysterious harmonist, the solitaire, utters his sweet but solemn trills, long-drawn and slow, like broken notes of a psalm, so perfectly in keeping with the deep solitude. In the woods that cover, as with an ever-verdant crown, the lower hills, the black shrike and the cotton-tree sparrow enunciate their clear musical calls - four or five notes running up the scale so rapidly as to be blended together, and suddenly falling at the end. Here, too, sits the hoppingDick, and whistles by the hour together a rich and mellow succession of wild notes, clear and flute-like, like his European cousin, the blackbird. The constantly-reiterated call of the red-eyed fly-catcher, "John-to-whip! John-towhip!" heard from all parts of the woods, makes the green glades lively. But birds are particularly social animals, and it is chiefly in the neighbourhood of man that their melodious voices are heard, as if to cheer him in his toil. The fields, the pastures and meadows, the hedgerows that border and map out his domains, the orchards and groves that surround and embosom his dwellings, affording grateful fruit and shadow from the heat, these are the situations in every inhabited * Generalisation, the act of comprehending several objects, agreeing in certain particulars, under one head. country that mostly resound with the voices of feathered songsters. The swallows that shoot along in their arrowy traverses over the plains, now skimming the placid stream, now coursing far up in the thin air, almost lost in the glaring sun-beam, twitter sweetly as they pass. The blue martens, too, sit side by side in close rows on the dead frond of some tall palm, or on the roof-ridge of the dwellinghouse, and utter a shrill but not unmelodious chant. From the green tussocks † of the Guinea-grass fields comes the singular hollow cry of the Tichicro, and now and again he runs to the summit of a stone, or jumps upon a wall, and warbles a sweet and low song. The clear whistle of the Banana-bird, like the tones of a clarionet, resounds from the fruit trees, among whose deep green foliage his gay hues, rich yellow, white and black, glance fitfully as he shoots to and fro; and his companions, the little blue quits, equally devoted admirers of a ripe sour-sop or custard-apple, accompany his loud notes with strains of their own, full of soft warbling music. And the most minute of birds, the tiny Vervain humming-bird, not larger than a school-boy's thumb, utters a song so sweet, but of sounds so attenuated ‡ withal, that you wonder who the musician can be, and are ready to think it the voice of an invisible fairy, when presently you see the atom of a performer perched on the very topmost twig of a mango or orange tree, his slender beak open and his spangled throat quivering as if he would expire his little soul in the effort. Gosse. * Traverses, crossings, journeyings or flights to and fro. Attenuated, thin, delicate. THE FORESTS OF SOUTH AMERICA. THE South American steppes form the boundary of a partial European cultivation. To the north, between the mountains of Venezuela and the Carribean Sea, we find commercial cities, neat villages, and carefully cultivated fields. Even the love of art and scientific culture, together with the noble desire of civil freedom, have long been awakened there. Towards the south the steppe terminates in a savage wilderness. Forests, the growth of thousands of years, fill with air-impenetrable fastnesses the humid regions between the Orinoco and the Amazon, massive leaden-colored granite rocks narrowing the bed of the foaming rivers: mountains and forests resound with the falling of the waters, with the roar of the tiger-like jaguar, and with the melancholy rain-announcing howlings of bearded apes. Where a sand-bank is left dry by the shallow current, the unwieldy crocodiles lie with open jaws as motionless as pieces of rock, and often covered with birds. The boa serpent, his body marked like a chess-board, coiled up, his tail wound round the branch of a tree, lies lurking on the bank secure of his prey; he marks the young bull or some feebler inhabitant of the forest as it fords the stream, and swiftly uncoiling himself, seizes the victim, and, covering it with mucus *, forces it laboriously down his swelling throat. In the midst of this grand and savage nature live many tribes of men, isolated from each other by the extraordinary diversity of their languages: some are nomadic, wholly unacquainted with agriculture, and using ants, gums, and earth as food; others are settled, of milder manners, and live on fruits which they have themselves reared. * Mucus, a viscid, glutinous fluid secreted by the mucous membrane, which lines the mouth, nose, lungs, stomach, &c. On its healthy activity digestion depends. Large spaces between the Cassiquiare and the Atabpo are only inhabited by the tapir* and the social apes, and are wholly destitute of human beings. Figures graven on the rocks show that even these deserts were once the seat of some degree of intellectual cultivation. They bear witness to the changeful destinies of man; so also do the unequally developed languages, which belong to the oldest and most imperishable class of historic memorials. But as in the steppe tigers and crocodiles fight with horses and cattle, so in the forests and on its borders in the wilderness of Guiana, man is ever armed against man. Some tribes drink with unnatural thirst the blood of their enemies; others, apparently weaponless, and yet prepared for murder, kill with a poisoned thumb-nail. The weaker hordes, when they have to pass along the sandy margin of the rivers, carefully efface with their hands the traces of their timid footsteps. Thus man in the lowest stage of almost animal rudeness, as well as amidst the apparent brilliancy of our higher cultivation, prepares for himself and his fellow-men increased toil and danger. The traveller wandering over the wide globe by sea and land, as well as the historic inquirer searching the records of past ages, finds everywhere the uniform and saddening spectacle of man at variance with man. He, therefore, who amidst the unreconciled discord of nations seeks for intellectual calm, gladly turns to contemplate the silent life of vegetation and the hidden activities of forces and powers operating in the sanctuaries of nature, or, obedient to the inborn impulse which for thousands of years has glowed in the human breast, gazes upwards in meditative contemplation on these celestial orbs, which are ever pursuing in undisturbed harmony their ancient and unchanging course. Humboldt. *Tapir, a thick-skinned mammal, allied to the hog and the rhinoceros. DIURNAL LIFE IN THE PRIMÆVAL FORESTS. DEMERARA yields to no country in the world in her birds. The mud is flaming with the scarlet curlew. At sunset the pelicans return from the sea to the courada trees. Among the flowers are the humming-birds. The pigeon and fowl of every variety people the fruit trees. At the close of the day the winged bats, or vanıpires, suck the blood of the traveller, and cool him by the flap of their wings. Every now and then the maam or tinamore sends forth one long and plaintive whistle from the depth of the forests and then stops; whilst the yelping of the toucan, and the shrill voice of the bird called pi-pi-yo, is heard during the interval. The campanero never fails to attract the attention of the passenger; at a distance of nearly three miles you may hear this snow-white bird tolling every four or five minutes like the distant convent bell. From six to nine in the morning, the forests resound with the mingled cries and strains of the feathered race; after this they gradually die away. From eleven till three all nature is hushed as in midnight silence, and scarce a note is heard saving that of the campanero and the pi-pi-yo : it is then that, oppressed by the solar heat, the birds retire to the thickest shade and wait for the refreshing cool of the evening. Then, at sundown, the vampires, bats, and goat-suckers dart from their lonely retreats, and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding croaking; while the owls and goat-suckers lament and mourn all night long. Waterton. |