Guests Welcome and Unwelcome 229 



be found out if they grew separately are ensured against 

 neglect by thus growing in company. 



But, many and beautiful as are the moths and butter- 

 flies of the mountains, one must go to the tropics to 

 see them in their full glory of numbers, size, and 

 colouring. 



Of all parts of the world, South America is richest in 

 butterflies, and the richest part of South America is 

 the region of the Amazons; where, also, the broad 

 belt of forest which surrounds the land-surface of the 

 earth almost continuously at the equator is denser 

 than anywhere else, and swarms with insects of many 

 kinds. 



There are some 1,200 species of butterflies in this 

 region ; but these gay insects do not care for the 

 solemn depths of the forest, where they find little or 

 no entertainment, arid they are chiefly to be seen in 

 the more or less open paths, where there is more light, 

 and where, consequently, more flowers are to be found. 



Here large blue butterflies, and many others, fly along 

 for miles, and always return if driven into the forest. 

 For this is gloomy and even musty, like a cavern ; the 

 damp ground is not covered by herbage, there is little 

 beauty or brilliancy of colouring in the trees, and 

 flowers are rare. 



The fact is that, according to the German proverb, 

 ' one cannot see the forest for the trees.' They are so 

 crowded together, and they run up to such a height, 

 that there is little to be seen but trunks, canopied by 

 a mass of foliage so dark and dense that the sun is 

 quite powerless to penetrate it. 



Many trees never blossom until they are a hundred 

 feet high, and it is only when a shower of bright petals 



