LIONS AT MIDNIGHT. 59 



deep growl he rises, and limps away to a bushy cover, 

 where he roars mournfully, and dies. 



Or take him a few nights afterwards, when from the 

 same pit he sees six lions together approach to drink. 

 Six lions at midnight there ! two men here ! nothing be- 

 tween the parties but a little pool, which a ten minutes' 

 walk would encircle ! One of the lions detects the in- 

 truder, and, with her eye fixed upon him, creeps round 

 the head of the fountain. What a moment of suspense ! 

 But once more the fatal ball speeds ; and the too curious 

 lioness, mortally wounded, bounds away with a howl, 

 followed by her five companions in a cloud of dust. 



Very different from such a scene is the gorgeous gloom 

 of a Brazilian forest, where the wiry- haired sloth hangs 

 from the branches, the toothless ant-eater breaks up with 

 its hoofs the great earthy nests of the termites, and the 

 armadillo burrows in the soil ; where the capybara and 

 the tapir rush to the water ; where painted toucans cry to 

 each other, golden-plum aged trogons sit on the topmost 

 boughs, and sparkling humming-birds flit over the 

 flowers ; where beetles, like precious stones, crawl up the 

 huge trunks, and butterflies of all brilliant hues fan the 

 still and loaded air. Not like the small and pale or 

 sombre-hued species that we see in the fields and gardens 

 of Britain are these : their numbers are prodigious ; their 

 variety bewildering ; many of them are adorned with the 

 most splendid colours, and some of the finest are of 

 immense size. Very characteristic of this region are the 

 species of the genus Morpho ; great butterflies larger 



