206 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS 



surface, announce from afar to the attentive beholder the nature of 

 the rock. As the declivities of the Andes, of Peru, Chili, and 

 Mexico, and the mountainous parts of the Canaries, the Antilles, 

 and the Philippines, are all inhabited by men of Spanish descent, 

 and as these are the parts -of the earth where (with the exception, 

 perhaps, of the Himalaya and the Thibetian Highlands,) the man- 

 ner of life of the inhabitants is most affected by and dependent on 

 the form of the earth's surface, so all the expressions which the 

 language of the mother country afforded for denoting the forms^ of 

 mountains in trachytic, basaltic, and porphyritic districts, as well as 

 in those where schists, limestones, and sandstone are the prevailing 

 rocks, have been happily preserved in daily use. Under such influ- 

 ences, even newly-formed words become part of the common treasure. 

 Speech is enriched and animated by everything that tends to and 

 promotes truth to nature, whether in rendering the impressions 

 received through the senses from the contemplation of the external 

 world, or in expressing thoughts, emotions, or sentiments which 

 have their sources in the inner depths of our being. 



In descriptions of natural objects or scenery, both in the manner 

 of viewing the phenomena, and in the choice of the expressions f 

 employed to describe them, this truth to nature must ever be kept in 

 view as the guiding aim : its attainment will be at once most easily 

 and most effectually secured by simplicity in the narration of what 

 we have ourselves beheld or experienced, and by limiting ^nd 

 individualizing the locality with which the narrative is connected. 

 Generalization of physical views, and the statement of general results, 

 belong rather to the "study of the Cosmos," which, indeed,, must 

 ever continue to be to us a science of Induction; but the animated 

 description of organic forms (plants and animals), in their local and 

 picturesque relations to the varied surface of the earth (as a small 

 fragment of the whole terrestrial life), affords materials towards the 

 study of the Cosmos, and also tends to advance it by the stimulus 

 or impulse imparted to the mind when artistic treatment is applied 

 to phenomena of nature on a great scale. 



Among such phenomena must certainly be classed the vast forest 

 region which, in the tropical portion of South America, fills the great 

 connected basins of the Orinoco and the Amazons. If the name of 



