48 The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
cecropia trees, with their white stems and large palmated 
leaves standing up like great candelabra. Sometimes the 
ground is carpeted with large flowers, yellow, pink, or white, 
that have fallen from some invisible tree-top above, or the 
air is filled with a delicious perfume, for the source of which 
one seeks around in vain, as the flowers that cause it are far 
overhead out of sight, lost in the great overshadowing crown 
of verdure. Numerous babbling brooks intersect the forest, 
with moss-covered stones and fern-clad nooks. One’s 
thoughts are led away to the green dells in English denes, 
but are soon recalled; for the sparkling pools are the favourite 
haunts of the fairy humming-birds, and like an arrow one 
will dart up the brook, and, poised on wings moving with 
almost invisible velocity, clothed in purple, golden, or 
emerald glory, hang suspended in the air; gazing with 
startled look at the intruder, with a sudden jerk, turning 
round first one eye, then the other, and suddenly disappear 
like a flash of light. 
Unlike the plains and savannahs we crossed yesterday, 
where the ground is parched up in the dry season, the 
Atlantic forest, bathed in the rains distilled from the north- 
east trades, is ever verdant. Perennial moisture reigns in 
the soil, perennial summer in the air, and vegetation 
luxuriates in ceaseless activity and verdure, all the year 
round. Unknown are the autumn tints, the bright browns 
and yellows of English woods, much less the crimsons, 
purples, and yellows of Canada, where the dying foliage 
rivals, nay, excels the expiring dolphin in splendour. Un- 
known the cold sleep of winter; unknown the lovely awaken- 
ing of vegetation at the first gentle touch of spring. A 
ceaseless round of ever-active life weaves the forest scenery 
of the tropics into one monotonous whole, of which the com- 
ponent parts exhibit in detail untold variety and beauty. 
To the genial influence of ever-present moisture and heat 
we must ascribe the infinite variety of the trees of these 
forests. They do not grow in clusters or masses of single 
species, like our oaks, beeches, and firs, but every tree is 
different from its neighbour, and they crowd upon each other 
in unsocial rivalry, each trying to overtop the other. For 
this reason we see the great straight trunks rising a hundred 
feet without a branch, and carrying their domes of foliage 
