60 FOOD AXD HABITS. 



cotton-trees, but is clothed with fantastic para- 

 sites; begonias with waxen flowers, and ferns 

 with hirsute stems climb up the trunks ; enor- 

 mous bromelias spring from the greater forks, 

 and fringe the horizontal limbs; various OrchideaB 

 with matted roots and grotesque blossoms droop 

 from every bough, and long lianes like the cord- 

 age of a ship depend from the loftiest branches, 

 or stretch from tree to tree. Elegant tree-ferns 

 and towering palms are numerous; here and 

 there the wild plantain or Heliconia waves its 

 long flag -like leaves from amidst the humbler 

 bushes, and in the most obscure corners, over 

 some decaying log nods the noble spike of a 

 magnificent limodorum. Nothing is flaunting 

 or showy all is solemn and subdued, but all is 

 exquisitely beautiful. Now and then the ear is 

 startled by the long-drawn measured notes of 

 the Solitaire (the organist of Buffon, a slender- 

 billed warbler), itself mysteriously unseen, like 

 the hymn of praise of an angel. The smaller 

 wood consists largely of the plant called glass- 

 eye berry, a scrophularious shrub, the blossoms 

 of which, though presenting little beauty in form 

 or hue, are pre-eminently attractive to the long- 

 tailed Humming-bird. These bushes are at no 

 part of the year out of blossom, the scarlet 

 berries appearing at all seasons on the same 

 stalk as the flowers. And here at any time one 

 may with tolerable certainty calculate on finding 

 these very lovely birds. But it is in March, April, 



