WOODS AND FIELDS 181 



wings of sapphire, as if any triumph of the 

 jeweller's art could ever vie with that spark- 

 ling epitome of life and light." ^ 



Sir Wyville Thomson graphically describes 

 a morning in a Brazilian forest : — 



" The night was almost absolutely silent, 

 only now and then a peculiarly shrill cry of 

 some night bird reached us from the woods. 

 As we got into the skirt of the forest the 

 morning broke, but the rheil in a Brazilian 

 forest is wonderfully different from the slow 

 creeping on of the dawn of a summer morning 

 at home, to the music of the thrushes answer- 

 ing one another's full rich notes from neigh- 

 bouring thorn-trees. Suddenly a yellow light 

 spreads upwards in the east, the stars quickly 

 fade, and the dark fringes of the forest and 

 the tall palms show out black against the 

 yellow sky, and almost before one has time to 

 observe the change the sun has risen straight 

 and fierce, and the whole landscape is bathed 

 in the full light of day. But the morning is 

 yet for another hour cool and fresh, and the 

 scene is indescribably beautiful. The woods, 



1 Thomson, Voyage of the Challenger. 



