m SUM Am A. 



133 



To ultatD specimens of the ancient arlxjreal nice was i\ task 

 slow and ililTicult of accomplisiimtnit ; for Init few trees could be 

 felled ill one day, and g<iod eyes wvre required to toll ut a 

 height of 1,30 ft* or 2UUft. if there were fruit or liower to rewurd 

 tlio luliour and time spent in the operation ; and when, after 

 hiiril toil^ ji grout tree ouine onishtijf^ down, letting in the 

 sunlight on the damp ground, the beauty of tho foliage and of 

 the Hitwers or fruit was often a rich recompense for the labi>nr. 

 It was a happy thing, that snch a giant conhl not fail to 

 bring to the gnamd jwrtions of one or more of his noighboun* 

 in hid downfall, large enough to alVord grand specimens. 



No one eoulil fail to he attracted by the at first unusiuil 

 sight of trees bearing their blossomH, or fruit, or bi>th, in great 

 ]>rofiision on their bare trunks. Of these tho ofte!iest recurring 

 belong to a group producing some of the most beautiful trees 

 and shrubs in the world, the Ternstiwmaeew, Tea-family, 

 to wliieh the Camellia belongs. The pendent pure white or 

 pink-Hushed, gohlen-centred corollas of the Saurayaa, (duster 

 round their trunks, hiding them for twenty or thirty feet of 

 their height, like maypoles busked for a fete. Besides orehida 

 and the Asclepiaclacem which contain the wax-plants, or Hoyas, 

 the brightest epiphytes wore certainly the species of ^schij^ 

 nanthes, many of which have drooping bell-Howers of the 

 deepest scarlet. 



Zoological prizes had just iis diligently to be searched for as 

 botanical tritphies ; as in tho ctise of flowers, insects, birds and 

 other animals do not wait, even in the profuse tropics, at every 

 tdossom, or on every branch for the collectors net and the 

 hunter's gun. In the depths of the virgin fureat little life is to 

 be seen ; there, an oppressive silence reigns* One hears occiision- 

 ally only a distant note from S(mie bird or mammal, or the stridn- 

 lating of a ciead on a tree trunk far out of eye-shot, and in the 

 second growth, if these are more abundant as the ear asseitSj 

 they are as dilKcult, from numerous obstacles to sight and 

 progress, to see or secure. The ornithologist and the entomo- 

 logist obtain most of their treasures in the small virgin forest 

 patches in tho neighbourhood of villages, in wide shady paths i 

 in the great forest, and along sunny walks amid the openedl 

 [jortions of the second growth, ' 



I was fortunate in finding a little of all this description of 



