A JUNGLE CLEARING 51 
twenty litile green figures gazing intently down 
at me, from so small a sapling that their addition 
almost doubled the foliage. That their small 
wings could wring such a sound from the fabric 
of the air was unbelievable. At my first move- 
ment, the flock leaped forth, and if their wings 
made even a rustle, it was wholly drowned in the 
chorus of chattering cries which poured forth un- 
ceasingly as the little band swept up and around 
the sky circle. As an alighting morpho butterfly 
dazzles the eyes with a final flash of his blazing 
azure before vanishing behind the leaves and 
fungi of his lower surface, so parrakeets change 
from screaming motes in the heavens to silence, 
and then to a hurtling, roaring boomerang, whose 
amazing unexpectedness would distract the most 
dangerous eyes from the little motionless leaf-fig- 
ures in a neighboring tree-top. 
When I sat down again, the whole feeling of 
the hillside was changed. I was aware that my 
weed was a northern weed only in appearance, 
and I should not have been surprised to see my 
bees change to flies or my lizards to snakes— 
tropical beings have a way of doing such things. 
The next phenomenon was color,—unreal, liv- 
ing pigment,—which seemed to appeal to more 
