Surrounding the cleared portions around Greytown is a scrubby bush,
amongst which are many guayava trees (Psidium sp.) having a fruit
like a small apple filled with seeds, of a sub-acid flavour, from
which the celebrated guava jelly is made. The fruit itself often
occasions severe fits of indigestion, and many of the natives will
not swallow the small seeds, but only the pulpy portion, which is
said to be harmless. I saw another fruit growing here, a yellow
berry about the size of a cherry, called "Nancito" by the natives.
It is often preserved by them with spirit and eaten like olives.
Beyond the brushwood, which grows where the original forest has
been cut down, there are large trees covered with numerous
epiphytes--Tillandsias, orchids, ferns, and a hundred others, that
make every big tree an aerial garden. Great arums perch on the
forks and send down roots like cords to the ground, whilst lianas
run from tree to tree or hang in loops and folds like the
disordered tackle of a ship.

Green parrots fly over in screaming flocks, or nestle in loving
couples amidst the foliage, toucans hop along the branches, turning
their long, highly-coloured beaks from side to side with an
old-fashioned look, and beautiful tanagers (Ramphocaelus
passerinii) frequent the outskirts of the forest, all velvety
black, excepting a large patch of fiery-red above the tail, which
renders the bird very conspicuous. It is only the male that is thus
coloured, the female being clothed in a sober suit of
greenish-brown. I think this bird is polygamous, for several of the
brown ones were always seen with one of the red-and-black ones. The
bright colours of the male must make it very conspicuous to birds
of prey, and, probably in consequence, it is not nearly so bold as
the obscurely-coloured females. When a clear space in the brushwood