THE EQUATORIAL ZONE. 269 



the soft, subdued, green light. It is in imitation of this 

 light that we sometimes see hothouses which contain col- 

 lections of tropical Ferns glazed with a green-tinted glass, 

 which produces a " counterfeited gloom," and greatly helps 

 out the mental picture of a tropical forest. Nor is the 

 quiet and silence of a hothouse without a resemblance to 

 the stillness which reigns within the tropics at the noontide 

 of an unusually sultry day, when nothing is heard but " the 

 dull muffled sound of the buzzing and humming of insects 

 close to the earth, when the larger animals retire within the 

 deep recesses of the forest, or e get them away together, and 

 lay them down in their dens,' and the birds nestle beneath 

 the foliage of the trees." 



These trees are many of them the same as those to which 

 we were introduced in the last zone ; but here they reach 

 the very perfection of development. The Palms are the 

 crowning beauty of all; the other trees which form the 

 leading features being still Bananas and Plantains (Mu- 

 sacea}, the Bamboo (Bambusa), Sugar-cane (Saccharum], 

 and other tree-grasses. The Pandani and Scitaminea still 

 appear amongst the dramatis persona, and play a very im- 

 portant part in the scene. 



But some of the great grandees of all belong to a dif- 



