FOREST SCENERY. 133 



scene is much nearer that described by South 

 American travellers, as characterising the interior of 

 the forest in that region. That giant of the lowlands 

 the Ceiba or Cotton-tree {Eriodendron anfractuosum) 

 hardly reaches these elevated woods ; but its place is 

 supplied by scarcely less bulky Fig-trees, whose hoary 

 trunks and broad horizontal limbs are a perfect 

 nursery of Orchidece and Bromeliacece ; and magni- 

 ficent Santa- Marias {Calophylhim), Broad-leafs {Ter- 

 minalia), Parrot-berries (Sloanea), and other lofty 

 trees, tower up to an enormous pre-eminence above 

 their fellows. In parts which have once been cleared, 

 and since neglected, — according to that law by 

 which a primitive forest, when once cut down, is 

 succeeded by a spontaneous growth of a totally dif- 

 ferent kind of wood, — dense thickets of a species 

 of Piper, called (from the propensity of this tribe 

 to form thickened nodes, like those of grasses, at 

 regular intervals on its trunk and branches) Jointer 

 or Jointwood, grow in large tracts to the exclusion 

 of everything else. In these Jointer thickets the 

 Green Tody, Green Sparrow, or Robin Redbreast 

 of the colonists {Todus viridis), is particularly abund- 

 ant ; a lovely little bird, with the upper parts emerald 

 green, the belly pale yellow, tinged with rosy, and 

 the throat and gorget deep rich crimson-plush. It 

 sits with the utmost fearlessness on the low twigs 

 that jut out into the road, almost brushing our faces 

 as we pass ; or flits about on feeble wing, pursuing 

 flies, with a soft plaintive squeak.* In other places 



* In The Birds of Jamaica, p, 77., Mr. Hill has described the 

 eggs of this little bird as *' grey, brown -spotted." He has since had 



