FOREST SCENERY. 
133 
scene is much nearer that described by South 
American travellers, as characterising the interior of 
the forest in that region. That giant of the lowlands 
the Ceiba or Cotton-tree {Eriodendron anfractuosum) 
hardly reaches these elevated woods ; but its place is 
supplied by scarcely less bulky Fig-trees, whose hoary 
trunks and broad horizontal limbs are a perfect 
nursery of OrcliidecR and BromeliacecE ; and magni- 
ficent Santa-Marias [CalopJiyllum), Broad-leafs {Ter^ 
minalia)i Parrot-berries {Sloanea), and other lofty 
trees, tower up to an enormous pre-eminence above 
their fellows. In parts which have once been cleared, 
and since neglected, — according to that law by 
which a primitive forest, when once cut down, is 
succeeded by a spontaneous growth of a totally dif- 
ferent kind of wood, — dense thickets of a species 
of Piper, called (from the propensity of this tribe 
to form thickened nodes, like those of grasses, at 
regular intervals on its trunk and branches) Jointer 
or Jointwood, grow in large tracts to the exclusion 
of everything else. In these Jointer thickets the 
Green Tody, Green Sparrow, or Robin Redbreast 
of the colonists (Todus viridis), is particularly abund- 
ant; a lovely little bird, with the upper parts emerald 
green, the belly pale yellow, tinged with rosy, and 
the throat and gorget deep rich crimson-plush. It 
sits with the utmost fearlessness on the low twigs 
that jut out into the road, almost brushing our faces 
as we pass ; or flits about on feeble wing, pursuing 
flies, with a soft plaintive squeak.* In other places 
* In The Birds of Jamaica, p. 77., Mr. Hill has described the 
eggs of this little bird as “ grey, brown-spotted.” He has since had 
