NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS. 201 



rocky mounds and naked boulders were covered with large. , 

 thick-scaled Iguanas, Gecko-lizards, and spotted Salamanders. 

 Motionless, with uplifted heads and widely extended mouths, 

 they seemed to inhale the heated air with ecstasy. The 

 larger animals at such times take refuge in the deep recesses 

 of the forest, the birds nestle beneath the foliage of the trees, 

 or in the clefts of the rocks ; but if in this apparent still- 

 ness of nature we listen closely for the faintest tones, we 

 detect, a dull, muffled sound, a buzzing and humming of 

 insects close to the earth, in the lower strata of the atmo- 

 sphere. Everything proclaims a world of active organic 

 forces. In every shrub, in the cracked bark of trees, in the 

 perforated ground inhabited by hymenopterous insects, life is 

 everywhere audibly manifest. It is one of the many voices 

 of nature revealed to the pious and susceptible spirit of man. 



