Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/174

110 particularly noticeable, as the hard spines, some of them over 2 inches long, were arranged symmetrically in rosettes over both trunk and branches. As a rule the trees were but sparsely scattered over the plain, forming only here and there clumps and small thickets, where perchance the yellow and red bottle-brush flowers or the purple masses of a flowering creeper would catch the eye.

The redeeming feature in the landscape was the beauty of the lignum-vitae trees, covered even in this dry season with green leaves and with clusters of purple blossom. But if the vegetation was for the most part stunted and unattractive, both interest and colour were supplied by the birds, for we were riding through a veritable aviary, and small bright-plumaged birds were so numerous that at times the bare branches appeared flushed into flowering sprays. The sensontes poured forth volumes of liquid sound from every thicket; sweet-voiced orioles arranged themselves into golden bunches; saucy blue jays, and their still more impudent cousins, the crested grey jays, circled noisily around us and perched on branches almost within reach of our hands, and chattered at one another as though they were discussing the propriety of allowing us to pass. Green and yellow flycatchers flew from their perches, and made erratic sweeps in the air in chase of unwary insects. Now and again one caught sight of a stupid-looking mot mot with lovely blue and green plumage, swinging his queer tail-feathers from side to side in uneasy movement. Tiny iridescent humming-birds flitted across our path, hovered for a moment over a flower, and then darted out of sight, and numerous wrens not much larger than the humming-birds could be seen slipping and sliding through the thorny hedges and fences. Large flocks of the friendly blackbirds, with unmanageably long tails, whose gregarious movements we had so often watched in the plazas and patios, gossiped together vociferously, and red-headed woodpeckers tapped loudly against the tree-trunks. The pretty little ground-doves, whose plaintive cooing notes contrasted pleasantly with the strident screams of the parrots and the incessant chatter of the jays, ran along the path in search of food, and would not take to flight until our mules were almost over them.

I was told to keep a sharp look out for the ground-cuckoos, and can conscientiously say that I saw one; but as he leapt out of one low bush, raced across the path and disappeared like a flash of lightning in the next shelter of undergrowth, and as all the others we met with on our journey behaved in precisely the same way, I have only a very sketchy idea of their appearance. I should like to be able to describe in words the beauty of the flight of the flocks of parrots and parroquets as they swept overhead, their brilliant plumage dashing like emeralds in the sunlight, or the stately sailing