250 PASSERES. FRINGILLAD^. 



with their " golden fruitage." The Pride of China, 

 lovely in its graceful leaves and spikes of lilac 

 blossoms, and not less sweet-scented than the orange ; 

 the pimento, dense and glossy, with another, but 

 not inferior, character of beauty ; are varied by the 

 less showy, but still valuable, cedar and guazuma. 

 The various species of echites trail their slender 

 stems and open their brilliant flowers, along the 

 top of the wall, and the pretty Banisteria displays 

 its singular yellow blossoms, or scarlet berries at its 

 foot; while near the top of the lane, tangled and 

 matted masses of the niglit-blowing cereus depend 

 from the trees, or sprawl over the walls, expand- 

 ing their magnificent, sun-like flowers, only to "the 

 noon of night." Here and there huge black nests 

 of termites look like barrels built into the wall, 

 whose loose stones, grey with exposure, and dis- 

 coloured with many-tinted lichens, afford a som- 

 bre relief to the numerous large-leafed arums that 

 climb and cluster above them. To the left the 

 mountain towers, dark and frowning ; the view on 

 the right is bounded by a row of little rounded 

 hills, studded with trees and clumps of pimento. 

 But between the traveller and either, extend the 

 fields of guinea-grass, which are enclosed by these 

 boundary walls. In the autumn, when the grass 

 is grown tall, and the panicles of seed waving in 

 the wind give it a hoary surface, the little Grass- 

 quits, both of this and the following species, throng- 

 hither in numerous flocks, and perching in rows 

 on the slender stalks, weigh them down, while 

 they rifle them of the farinaceous seeds. 



