HARMONIES. 



Or take him a few nights afterwards, when 

 from the same pit he sees six lions together ap- 

 proach to drink. Six lions at midnight there 1 

 two men here ! nothing between the parties but a 

 little pool, which a ten minutes' walk would en- 

 circle 1 One of the lions detects the intruder, and, 

 with her eye fixed upon him, creeps round the 

 head of the fountain. What a moment of sus- 

 pense ! But once more the fatal ball speeds ; and 

 the too curious lioness, mortally wounded, bounds 

 away with a howl, followed by her five com- 

 panions 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-plumaged 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 than a man's open hand, 

 with the lower surface of the wings adorned with 

 a pearly iridescence, and concentric rings, while 

 their upper face is of an uniform azure, so in- 

 tensely lustrous that the eye cannot gaze upon it 

 in the sun without pain. 

 63 



