w leaf, as with us in the colder north. The fruits
and flowers are ever present, yet there is a certain resemblance to
spring and autumn, as we are accustomed to see them. The shrubs and
trees are decked more or less with young fresh leaves at all times,
while the ground is strewn with those in a state of decay which have
ripened and faded out of life. The latter with us are the harbingers
of winter, the former coming only with the opening spring. Thus it is
that we call it the reign of eternal summer, for all out-of-doors
seems like a conservatory of choice flowers and birds of dazzling
hues. Although these highly colored creatures of the feathered tribe,
like the butterflies, are almost innumerable, one is forced to admit
that there are few sweet songsters among them. Paroquets in mottled
green, practicing their dainty ways, present themselves in flocks,
lighting upon the nearest bushes and branches with a winning
fearlessness and confidence. They will slip quietly away if one
attempts to catch them, but when taken young they are easily
domesticated, accommodating themselves to human associations with the
utmost facility, and though they are left free to seek the woods and
jungle when they choose, they are sure to return voluntarily to the
cabins of the natives, to be fed and petted by human hands.

One variety of the green paroquet has a curious rose-colored ring
about its neck, like the turtle-dove, so delicate and uniform as to
seem almost artificial. The natives call it the love-bird. The
youthful Singhalese women, like those of Japan, take great pains in
the arrangement of their ebon-black hair. It was a unique and very
pretty sight observed one day in the native district of Colombo, when
a pair of live paroquets' heads, forming the apex to a native woman's
abundant coil, were seen coquettishly twisting and turning hither and
thither. The little beauties were quite content, perched up there amid
their mistress' wealth of tresses. They were hardly confined, though
their bodies were laid cosily beneath the braids as though resting in
their native nest. What a field this tropical isle would have been for
Audubon!

One often sees hovering about the gardens and bungalows a little bird
as large as an English sparrow, called the Ceylon bird of paradise,
but which does not deserve that name. It has a black head, a
neutral-tinted body, and a long tail, five times the length of its
body, consisting of pure white feathers