46 LOCAL 



plants bearing large and variegated blossoms, 

 have given place to monocotyledons, whose slen- 

 der spikes constitute the sole covering of the 

 soil. This is the zone of the grasses, one vast 

 savannah extending over the immense mountain 

 plateaux, and reflecting a yellow, almost golden 

 tinge, to the slopes of the Cordilleras, on which 

 graze the Lama and the cattle domesticated 

 by the European colonist. Where the naked 

 trachyte rock pierces the grassy turf, and pene- 

 trates into those higher strata of air, which are 

 supposed to be less charged with carbonic acid, 

 we meet only with plants of an inferior organi- 

 zation, as lichens, lecideas, and the brightly- 

 coloured dust-like lepraria, scattered around in 

 circular patches. Islets of fresh-fallen snow, 

 varying in form and extent, arrest the last feeble 

 traces of vegetable development, and to these 

 succeeds the region of perpetual snow." Who 

 could suspect that, up to the borders of this 

 region, the range of the Trochilidce extended ! 



Mr. Darwin (Journal of Researches) ob- 

 served Humming-birds in the sequestered shades 

 of the Gavia or topsail mountain near Eio de 

 Janeiro. " The air," he says, " was delightfully 

 cool and fragrant ; and the drops of dew still 

 glittered on the leaves of the large liliaceous 

 plants which had shaded the streamlets of clear 

 water. Sitting down on a rock of granite, it 

 was delightful to watch the various insects and 

 birds as they flew past. The Humming-birds 





