218 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



making new patterns in the green drapery; for 

 in this short time, the spectral blooms of the night 

 had awakened and flooded my resting-place with 

 their fragrance. 



And these were but the first of the flowers; 

 for when the brief tropic twilight is quenched, 

 a new world is born. The leaves and blossoms of 

 the day are at rest, and the birds and insects 

 sleep. New blooms open, strange scents pour 

 forth. Even our dull senses respond to these; 

 for just as the eye is dimmed, so are the other 

 senses quickened in the sudden night of the jun- 

 gle. Nearby, so close that one can reach out and 

 touch them, the pale Cereus moons expand, ex- 

 haling their sweetness, subtle breaths of fra- 

 grance calling for the very life of their race to the 

 whirring hawkmoths. The tiny miller who, 

 through the hours of glare has crouched beneath 

 a leaf, flutters upward, and the trail of her per- 

 fume summons her mate perhaps half a mile 

 down wind. The civet cat, stimulated by love or 

 war, fills the glade with an odor so pungent that 

 it seems as if the other senses must mark it. 



Although there may seem not a breath of air 

 in motion, yet the . tide of scent is never still. 

 One's moistened finger may reveal no cool side, 



