140 ZOOLOGICAL RESEARCHES 



region , though it gets much reduced by the myriads of 

 the so-called drivers and two species of Jermes (7. mor- 

 dax and T. hellicosiis). 



Quite another aspect offers the great virgin forest that 

 we enter after having left the cultivated district. A moist 

 hot-house-air strikes us here, a smell of mouldering wood, 

 of dead leaves and other decaying substances. There stands , 

 in a mysterious twilight, before us a scene grander than 

 we saw before , a wild chaos of giantic trees , smaller 

 trunks and underwood, intertwined by a labyrinth of 

 lianas and other creepers ; half decayed trunks of mam- 

 moth-like dimensions, and above them others, prevented 

 from falling down by neighbouring trees and the iron 

 strength of a whole net of lianas; here a giantic tube of 

 twisted lianas , which latter , fastened to the branches of 

 surrounding trees, indicate the place where a tree, em- 

 braced to death, has decayed in an erect position. And 

 above all there spreads a foliage so dense that the 

 rays of the sun cannot penetrate to the ground. One of 

 the greatest attractions of this primeval forest is the huge 

 Silk-cotton-tree [Eriodendron anfractuosum), the trunk of 

 which reaches a circumference of 30 to 40 feet and which 

 spreads out his tremendous crown at a height of 80 to 

 100 feet. Below the foliage of this high forest par ex- 

 cellence, stands a forest of second rank, a forest in the 

 forest, and in this latter is developed an impenetrable 

 labyrinth of smaller trees and underwood , interwoven by 

 innumerable creepers, which render free motion by man 

 impossible. Only cutlass in hand is the huntsman able to 

 force his way through these thickets and will find the 

 way back easily enough by the cut-off twigs and marked trees. 



The marshy places are covered with giantic Aroidea and 

 Iridea of the most splendid white color and a fragrant 

 smell. Beautiful white waterlilies and other aquatic plants 

 delight the eye of the traveller, who has to cross, on long, 

 half decayed bridges of sticks of the most original kind , 

 the so-called monkey-bridges , these elegiacal forest-swamps. 

 ^otes from the Leyden Museum, Vol. VII. 



