294 TROPICAL FORESTS. 



of them have a simple grandeur of character 

 which belongs to no other tribe of vegetables, 

 but the other trees, be the species almost what 

 they may, are, in the undisturbed, but often im- 

 penetrable forests, the very excess of vegetable 

 action. Bright as is the sun, the trees are so 

 thickly matted, that their shadow turns mid- 

 day into twilight; and the branches are full of 

 monkeys gambolling and chattering in the most 

 fantastic manner ; and of parrots and other zygo- 

 daclytic, or yoke-footed birds, of the most brilliant 

 plumage, scrambling and screaming every where. 

 The earth, too, whenever a beam of the bright sun 

 breaks in, is glistening with lizards, and the light 

 is all radiant with humming birds ; so that all the 

 fancies of the northern romancers, whose pictures 

 are of course limned only with the colours which 

 they knew, about fairy-land, are outdone by the 

 plain and simple reality. 



Then the epiphytes, or parasitical plants, are 

 perhaps even more wonderful. The greater number 

 of them belong to the orchidea, many of the British 

 species of which attract, by the singular forms of 

 their flowers, the attention of even those who are 

 not habitual observers of nature. The " bee," the 

 " fly," the " spider," and many other names have 

 been given to them from resemblances to the ani- 

 mals they are named after, which are not altoge- 

 ther fanciful. The more curious of the native 

 species are most abundant on the dry chalky 

 heights ; and those soils, in Kent especially, are 

 worthy of a visit in April or May for the spider, 

 a month later for the fly, and a month later still 

 for the bee. But they are not confined to the 

 chalk districts ; for some are found in bogs, others 



