110 CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



mise of the previous evening. Soon I was bathed in 

 perspiration, and had not a dry thread on me, not- 

 withstanding the shade at intervals. 



A mile of this brought me to a deep ravine, and 

 then I scrambled along the dry bed of what in the 

 summer was a roaring river, till I came out at the 

 bottom of a valley between two steep hills, where a 

 tiny rivulet trickled, and where the tall trees met in 

 a canopy overhead and effectually screened me from 

 the sun. 



The murmur of the stream was soothing, the sigh- 

 ing of the breeze in the treetops was quieting, and 

 the coolness of this secluded vale refreshing. Great 

 milkwood trees towered aloft, but the palmistes held 

 their heads even higher, while ferns and luxuriant, 

 lush-leaved wild pines cast a shade dense enough for 

 protection. A flock of parrots was screaming in the 

 milkwood tree, but I would not shoot at them, for 

 fear I might wound or kill my own Psittacus. A 

 saber-wing humming bird flew by, poised himself an 

 instant on buzzing wings, and then departed with a 

 whiz and a whirr. But he had delayed his departure 

 too long, for at the report of my gun he fell into the 

 ferns. 



By the rivulet-side I took a humming bird's nest 

 from the pendent leaf of a palm fringed with sharp 

 spines. This was the nest of the sicklebill hummer, 

 sometimes called the " Doctor," which often affixes 

 its nest to the under side of a " balisier " leaf, where 

 it has complete shelter from the sun and rain. 



Meanwhile 1 was whistling for trogons at inter- 



