Some butterflies stop in the gloomiest shades of the forest in darkness of noon. They all love the damp, and quantities of them surround puddles. Some settle with wings erect, some expand them and rest head downward, pressed closely against the supporting surface. The “swallow-tails” never allow their long tails to touch anything. Some alight upon the end of a stick, others rest upon dead leaves, others upon rocks or sand, some on the under surface of leaves, entirely disappearing when they alight. While some are protected for motion, others are protected for rest. Flickering noiselessly into the deep, wet shade in the network of vines and succulent leaves, they flash out into the clear sunlight. The glow of colors pulsates on their shining blue wings, intense as the fathomless blaze of a fragment of copper-saturated driftwood. Creatures of the sky they are, indeed, touched with the celestial hue. It was not without reason that the Greeks gave the same name to this wondrous insect and to the soul. CHAPTER V THE JUNGLE IN PARADOX “There is a strange beast, the which for his great heavinesse, and slownesse in moving, they call _Perico-ligero_, or the little-light-dogge; hee hath three nailes to every hand, and mooves both hand and feete as it were by compasse, and very heavily; it is in face like to a monkie, and hath a shrill crie; it climeth trees, and eates ants.” FATHER ACOSTA The uncouth sloth! Can any greater emblem of misery be conceived? He hangs upside down upon a branch like a bundle of rags on a nail. His hair is like dried grass, stiff, with a greenish tinge, and, as might be expected, goes the wrong way. His long arms are jointless, swinging to and fro like the end of a rope. He can turn his head all about, till his round, simple face meets the wind; then he opens his toothless mouth to take it in, giving rise to a tradition that he lives on air. His want of teeth is supplied by long nails--his only means of attack--with which he scrapes out ants. Whether [Illustration: A SLOTH, FROM THE _HISTORIAE RERUM NATURALIUM BRASILIAE_, AMSTERDAM, 1648.] he lives upon cecropia buds and dew, as Doctor Brehm declares, or upon armies of ants swarming in the hollow stems of the cecropia tree, it is certain that he haunts only that tree, which spreads out broad leaves whose white, lower sides reflect light into the sepulchral shade. It furnishes him with more food than he needs, and food is his only necessity. The rain pours, he listlessly hugs his branch, a sorry spectacle, emitting from time to time a deep sigh. His eye is dull, he knows no joy, no sorrow. He needs no sleep, no relief from a life which is nothing but respite. The odds seem too great against him to perform the simplest acts of life. The climax of activity is reached when, like a wad, he falls to the ground, apparently devoid of life.