4 TIMEHRI. 
leaves suffused with rich crimson, littering the ground, 
and worthy of more appreciation than they generally 
obtain. The fiddle-wood is a conspicuous example of a 
tree which loses its leaves entirely for a short time, 
while the one most noticed is the silk-cotton tree, fine 
specimens of which afford such a great contrast between 
their thick canopies of foliage and the dome of bare 
twigs. Again the cannon-ball tree (Couroupita) may be 
seen quite bare for a few days in February and August, 
and almost before the fa can be realised the new leaves 
are fully opened and the branches again covered. 
To the casual observer these changes appear to be 
quite erratic. Two trees of the same species are not 
necessarily bare at the sametime. In temperate climates 
the oaks or birches are nearly uniform in their bursting 
into leaf, but not so the trees of Guiana. Two speci- 
mens of the same species and even of the same variety, 
under equal conditions, may vary much in their flowering 
and fruiting times. This is where individuality comes 
in. A tree may be not only a mango, and say a peach 
mango, but it is an individual, differing from its relations 
as much as JOHN does from his brother THOMAS. But 
with all this the tree is by no means so erratic as might 
be supposed. It may be possible to obtain guavas or 
mangoes in every month of the year, but the mango and 
guava seasons are still fairly well settled, and recur 
regularly, with only such variations as everywhere 
appear in the cases of other fruits. Years of plenty alter- 
nate with others when fruit of particular kinds or perhaps 
of all kinds are scarce but the general result is that the 
season is at the same time of the year, varied a little 
perhaps by drought or deluge. 
