- WOODS AND FIELDS 181 
wings of sapphire, as if any triumph of the 
_jeweller’s art could ever vie with that spark- 
ling epitome of life and light.” * 
Sir Wyville Thomson graphically describes 
a morning in a Brazilian forest : — 
“The night was almost absolutely silent, 
only now and then a peculiarly shrill cry of 
some night bird reached us from the woods. 
As we got into the skirt of the forest the 
morning broke, but the réveil in a Brazilian 
forest is wonderfully different from the slow 
creeping on of the dawn of a summer morning 
at home, to the music of the thrushes answer- 
ing one another's full rich notes from neigh- 
bouring thorn-trees. Suddenly a yellow light 
spreads upwards in the east, the stars quickly 
fade, and the dark fringes of the forest and 
the tall palms show out black against the 
yellow sky, and almost before one has time to 
observe the change the sun has risen straight 
and fierce, and the whole landscape is bathed 
in the full light of day. But the morning is 
yet for another hour cool and fresh, and the 
scene is indescribably beautiful. The woods. 
1 Thomson, Voyage of the Challenger. 
