184 FLOWERS IN THE FOREST. 



As regards the dearth of flowers Mr. Wallace ob- 

 serves that 



" in the great virgin forests themselves, flowers are rarely 

 seen."* "You may" (he explains) "travel for 100 miles, 

 and see nothing but the varied greens of the forest foli- 

 age, and the deep gloom of its tangled recesses. "f "Some- 

 times a tree appears covered with beautiful flowers which do 

 not belong to it, but to one of the lianas that twine through 

 its branches, and send down great rope-like stems to the 

 ground. Sometimes the ground is carpeted with large flowers, 

 yellow, pink, or white, that have fallen from some invisible 

 tree tops above, or the air is filled with a delicious perfume, 

 the source of which one seeks in vain, for the flowers that 

 cause it are far overhead out of sight, lost in the great over- 

 shadowing crown of verdure. " " When for the first time " 

 (Mr. Wallace goes on to say) "the traveller wanders in these 

 primeval forests, he can scarcely fail to experience sensations 

 of awe, akin to those excited by the trackless ocean or the 

 Alpine snowfields. There is a vastness, a solemnity, a gloom, 

 a sense of solitude, and of human insignificance, which for 

 a time overwhelm him." ** " We often read in books of travels 

 of the silence and gloom of the Brazilian forests; they are 

 realities, and the impression deepens on a longer acquaint- 

 ance." ft 



The few sounds of birds and animals which break 

 the stillness are generally very harsh and unmusical, 

 and keep up the feeling of inhospitable wildness which 

 the forest is calculated to inspire, the musical notes of 

 song birds being rarely or never heard there. 



In our consideration of the equatorial forest, as a 



* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace. 1878, p. 61. 

 f Ibid., p. 62. 



Bett's Naturalist in Nicaragua, quoted by Mr. Wallace, in his 

 Tropical Nature, pp. 62 63. 

 ** Tropical Nature, by A. R. Wallace, p. 67. 

 ft Ibid., p. 71- 



