ared only with a tremendous flash of lightning. Imagine a
wonderful tapestry of strong ancient stuff, which had only been woven,
never torn, and think of this suddenly ripped from top to bottom by
some sinister, irresistible force.

In the instant that the sound began, it ceased; there was no echo, no
bell-like sustained overtones; both ends were buried in silence. As it
came to-day it was a high tearing crash which shattered silence as a
Very light destroys darkness; and at its cessation I looked up and
saw twenty little green figures gazing intently down at me, from so
small a sapling that their addition almost doubled the foliage. That
their small wings could wring such a sound from the fabric of the air
was unbelievable. At my first movement, the flock leaped forth, and if
their wings made even a rustle, it was wholly drowned in the chorus of
chattering cries which poured forth unceasingly as the little band
swept up and around the sky circle. As an alighting morpho butterfly
dazzles the eyes with a final flash of his blazing azure before
vanishing behind the leaves and fungi of his lower surface, so
parrakeets change from screaming motes in the heavens to silence, and
then to a hurtling, roaring boomerang, whose amazing unexpectedness
would distract the most dangerous eyes from the little motionless
leaf-figures in a neighboring treetop.

When I sat down again, the whole feeling of the hillside was changed.
I was aware that my weed was a northern weed only in appearance, and I
should not have been surprised to see my bees change to flies or my
lizards to snakes--tropical beings have a way of doing such things.

The next phenomenon was color,--unreal, living pigment,--which seemed
to appeal to more than one sense, and which satisfied, as a cooling
drink or a rare, delicious fragrance satisfies. A medium-sized, stocky
bird flew with steady wing-beats over the jungle, in black silhouette
against the sky, and swung up to an outstanding giant tree which
partly overhung the edge of my clearing. The instant it passed the
zone of green, it flashed out brilliant turquoise, and in the same
instant I recognized it and reached for my gun. Before I retrieved the
bird, a second, dull and dark-feathered, flew from the tree. I had
watched it for some time, but now, as it passed over, I saw no yellow
and knew it too was of real scientific interest to me; and with the
second barrel I secured it. Picking up my first bird, I found t