16,4 McGregor: Some Features of the Philippine Ornis 391 
been destroyed. In its virgin state it is open, with its large 
trees few and far apart; the intervening spaces are filled with 
small trees or by a jungle of sprawling, climbing, and small 
erect bamboos. In some expressions of this type the dominant 
trees include: 
Vitex parviflora Juss. Albizzia acle Merr. 
Tarrietia sylvatica Merr. Wallaceodendron celebicum Koord. 
Sindora supa Merr. Zizyphus zonulata Blanco. 
Kingiodendron alternifolium Merr. Pterocarpus echinatus Pers. 
Intsia bijuga O. Ktz. Aglaia clarkii Merr. 
Among the smaller species there may be: 
Maba buxifolia Pers. Cassia javanica Linn. 
Diospyros discolor Willd. Pterospermum spp. 
Taxotrophis ilicifolia Vid. Mallotus floribundus Muell.-Arg. 
WALLACE ON THE TROPICAL FOREST 
The lowland tropical forest was described in popular language 
years ago by Wallace. He says (pp. 240-244) :™ 
It is not easy to fix upon the most distinctive features of these virgin 
forests, which nevertheless impress themselves upon the beholder as some- 
thing quite unlike those of temperate lands, and as possessing a grandeur 
and sublimity altogether their own. * * * 
The observer new to the scene would perhaps be first struck by the 
varied yet symmetrical trunks, which rise up with perfect straightness 
to a great height without a branch, and which, being placed at a con- 
siderable average distance apart, give an impression similar to that pro- 
duced by the columns of some enormous building. Overhead, at a height, 
perhaps, of a hundred and fifty feet, is an almost unbroken canopy of 
foliage formed by the meeting together of these great trees and their 
interlacing branches; and this canopy is usually so dense that but an 
indistinct glimmer of the sky is to be seen, and even the intense tropical 
sunlight only penetrates to the ground subdued and broken up into 
Scattered fragments. There is a weird gloom and a solemn silence, 
which combine to produce a sense of the vast—the primeval—almost of 
the infinite. It is a world in which man seems an intruder, and where 
he feels overwhelmed by the contemplation of the ever-acting forces 
which, from the simple elements of the atmosphere, build up the great 
mass of vegetation which overshadows and almost seems to oppress the 
earth. 
Passing from the general impression to the elements of which the scene 
is composed, the observer is struck by the great diversity of details amid 
the general uniformity. Instead of endless repetitions of the same forms 
of trunk such as are to be seen in our pine, or oak, or beechwoods, the 
eye wanders from one tree to another and rarely detects two together 
of the species. All are tall and upright columns, but they differ from 
each other more than do the columns of Gothic, Greek, and Egyptian 
“Wallace, A. R., Natural Selection and Tropical Nature. Essays on 
descriptive and theoretical biology, new edition, with corrections and addi- 
tions. Macmillan and Co., London and New York (1895). 
