218 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
making new patterns in the green drapery; for 
in this short time, the spectral blooms of the night 
had awakened and flooded my resting-place with 
their fragrance. 
And these were but the first of the flowers; 
for when the brief tropic twilight is quenched, 
a new world is born. The leaves and blossoms of 
the day are at rest, and the birds and insects 
sleep. New blooms open, strange scents pour 
forth. Eiven our dull senses respond to these; 
for just as the eye is dimmed, so are the other 
senses quickened in the sudden night of the jun- 
gle. Nearby, so close that one can reach out and 
touch them, the pale Cereus moons expand, ex- 
haling their sweetness, subtle breaths of fra- 
grance calling for the very life of their race to the 
whirring hawkmoths. The tiny miller who, 
through the hours of glare has crouched beneath 
a leaf, flutters upward, and the trail of her per- 
fume. summons her mate perhaps half a mile 
down wind. The civet cat, stimulated by love or 
war, fills the glade with an odor so pungent that 
it seems as if the other senses must mark it. 
Although there may seem not a breath of air 
in motion, yet the tide of scent is never still. 
One’s moistened finger may reveal no cool side, 
