III 
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 
Difficulties of the Subject—General Aspect of the Animal Life of Equatorial 
Forests—Diurnal Lepidoptera or Butterflies—Peculiar Habits of Tro- 
pical Butterflies—Ants, Wasps, and Bees—Ants—Special Relations 
between Ants and Vegetation—Wasps and Bees—Orthoptera and 
other Insects—Beetles—Wingless Insects—General Observations on 
Tropical Insects—Birds: Parrots—Pigeons—Picarie—Cuckoos—Tro- 
gons, Barbets, Toucans, and Hornbills— Passeres— Reptiles and 
Amphibia: Lizards — Snakes— Frogs and Toads — Mammalia: 
Monkeys—Bats—Summary of the Aspects of Animal Life in the 
Tropics. 
THE attempt to give some account of the general aspects of 
animal life in the equatorial zone presents far greater diffi- 
culties than in the case of plants. On the one hand, animals 
rarely play any important part in scenery, and their entire 
absence may pass quite unnoticed; while the abundance, 
variety, and character of the vegetation are among those 
essential features that attract every eye. On the other hand, 
so many of the more important and characteristic types of 
animal life are restricted to one only out of the three great 
divisions of equatorial land, that they can hardly be claimed 
as characteristically tropical ; while the more extensive zoolog- 
ical groups which have a wide range in the tropics and do 
not equally abound in the temperate zones, are few in number, 
and often include such a diversity of forms, structures, and 
habits as to render any typical characterisation of them 
impossible. We must then, in the first place, suppose that 
our traveller is on the look-out for all signs of animal life; 
and that, possessing a general acquaintance as an out-door 
observer with the animals of our own country, he carefully 
