uneasiness would seize on every one, even the denizens of the
forest, betraying it by their motions. White clouds would appear
in the cast and gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness
along their lower portions. The whole eastern horizon would
become almost suddenly black, and this would spread upwards, the
sun at length becoming obscured. Then the rush of a mighty wind
is heard through the forest, swaying the tree-tops; a vivid flash
of lightning bursts forth, then a crash of thunder, and down
streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon cease, leaving
bluish-black, motionless clouds in the sky until night. Meantime
all nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower-petals and fallen
leaves are seen under the trees. Towards evening life revives
again, and the ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. The
following morning the sun again rises in a cloudless sky, and so
the cycle is completed; spring, summer, and autumn, as it were,
in one tropical day.

The days are more or less like this throughout the year in this
country. A little difference exists between the dry and wet
seasons;
but generally, the dry season, which lasts from July to December,
is
varied with showers, and the wet, from January to June, with
sunny days.
It results from this, that the periodical phenomena of plants and
animals
do not take place at about the same time in all species, or in
the
individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate
countries. Of course there is no hybernation; nor, as the dry