^6 CHRISTMAS IN TROPICAL DRESS. Chap. III. 



by grain and water, till we saw deserted villages, the people 

 all swept off by slavery, with grain standing by running 

 streams, but no birds. A red-throated black weaver-bird 

 comes in flocks a little later, wearing a long train of magni- 

 ficent plumes, which seem to be greatly in his way when 

 working for his dinner among the long grass. A goatsucker 

 or night jar (Oometornis vexillarius), only ten inches long 

 from head to tail, also attracts the eye in November by a 

 couple of feathers twenty-six inches long in the middle of 

 each wing, the ninth and tenth from the outside. They 

 give a slow wavy motion to the wings, and evidently retard 

 his flight, for at other times he flies so quick that no boy 

 could hit him with a stone. The natives can kill a hare by 

 throwing a club, and make good running shots, but no one 

 ever struck a night jar in common dress, though in the 

 evening twilight they settle close to one's feet. What may 

 be the object of the flight of the male bird being retarded 

 we cannot tell. The males alone possess these feathers, and 

 only for a time. 



It appears strange to have Christmas come in such a 

 cheerful bright season as this ; one can hardly recognise 

 it in summer dress, with singing birds, springing corn, and 

 flowery plains, instead of in the winter robes of bygone days, 

 when the keen bracing air, and ground clad in a mantle of 

 snow, made the cozy fireside meeting-place of families doubly 

 comfortable. The associations of early days spent in a 

 Northern clime dispose us to view other lands with rather 

 contracted notions, and, like the Esquimaux who were 

 brought to Europe, to look cheerlessly at this sunny portion 

 of our fair world, which is unhealthy only because the ex- 

 uberant fertility with which the Maker has endowed it to 

 yield abundant fcod for man and beast, is allowed to run 



