JUNGLE LIFE AT AREMU. 307 



I discover an overgrown clearing witli the skeleton of a liiit 

 in the centre. The ruin itself is a thing of exquisite beauty, 

 the half-decayed uprights and roof saplings being interlaced 

 and overhung with vines, the brilliant scarlet, poppy-like 

 passion flowers crowning all. From the blossoms comes a 

 busy hum of insects, in sharp contrast to the silence of the 

 trail along which we have come. In the virgin forest there 

 is ever sharp contrast. Brilliant bits of sunlight alternate 

 with blackest shadow; deathly silence is broken by the ear- 

 piercing call of the Goldbird; the dull earthy smell of the 

 mould is suddenly permeated by the rare sweet incense of 

 some blossom or the penetrating musk of an animal or some 

 huge hemipterous insect. 



In a clearing — even a deserted one like this and only a 

 few yards in extent — all is toned down. The odors arc 

 diffused and difficult to analyze; the droning of bees alter- 

 nates only with the sharper whirr of a Hummingbird's wings, 

 either the brown White-eyebrowcd one,'"' or the beauty with 

 long sweeping tail."' The Rufous-breasted Hummingbirds '^ 

 are abundant here and have quite a sweet song, a trill of 

 twelve or fifteen notes, slow at first but rapidly increasing and 

 ascending. 



The half hidden framework of the hut with the collapsed 

 shelf and table, tell of man's past presence; so do the papaw, 

 sugar-cane and banana run riot; and suddenly we hear the 

 sweet rollicking song of a litde House Wren,'"* man's fol- 

 lower, filling the deserted glade with sweetness; probably 

 hoping that soon he will return and reclaim this fast vanish- 

 ing oasis. For when the trees and vines — already reaching 

 up over the papaw and bananas — close densely in, as they 

 surely will, the jungle will become sovereign again, and 

 then the pair of tiny birds will flee. Not for them are the 

 dark silences, the tall sombre trunks. Their jubilant little 

 souls crave light and companionship. Many of the birds of 



