90 
A SCENE IN THE FOREST. 
the birds would dart off, seize it, and return again to its sitting-place." 
They are great enemies of the butterflies, and the ground beneath their 
favourite resorts is frequently strewn with delicate gauzy wings. The 
green jacamar is the most numerous species, and he flashes upon the 
traveller like a thing of beauty, with golden-green breast, snow-white 
throat, and bright red tail. Sir Richard Schomburgk affirms that he 
will remain in the same place for hours, like a St. Simeon Stylites. 
His cry is strong, clear, and shrill, but not agreeable. He makes his 
nest in a rounded cavity, which he digs out on the bank of a running 
stream ; the entrance measuring about an inqh and a half in diameter. 
Some species build in the holes of trees. 
Says the naturalist Swainson : " The motmots or momots are so 
named from their unvarying note, which may be heard morning and 
evening from the depths of the forest; but the bird is never seen 
except the hunter comes unexpectedly upon his retreat, which is gene- 
rally some low, withered branch, completely shaded, and just at the 
edge of such paths as are made by the cavies or the Indians." He 
secures his food in the same way, perhaps, as the ti'ogons and the jaca- 
mars, which frequent the same "nooks of gi'eenery ;'" but being of a 
stronger build, he does not confine himself to insects, — travellers even 
asserting that, like the toucans, he devours the eggs and young of other 
birds. He is a silent, solitary, hermit-like personage, and quickens into 
a little vivacity only at feeding-time, when all animals display an 
unusual amount of interest and excitement. 
Mr. Edwards, sketching a forest scene on the Upper Amazon, speaks 
of gentle hills and brooks of clearest water, of evergreens of difierent 
varieties and exquisite forms, of valleys clothed knee-deep in ferns, 
like Tennyson's "talking oak," in "Sumnerchace." Here the traveller's 
passage was interrupted by no cable-like lianas and climbers ; but a 
thousand lesser vines draped the low tree-tops with myi'iads of new 
and charming flowers. Everywhere the delicious shades were travei-sed 
by paths, — some made by the hunters in their fi-equent rambles, othei*s 
by wild animals resorting to the water; and along these it was easy to 
