504 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ming hole presents a tendency to fall into the well-worn path that leads 

 down to amphibious quarters. 



On the broad highway of terrestrial life the eifort and adaptation 

 has been to develop speed, strength, protective coverings, colors, etc., 

 and here has been the widest and strongest struggle for supremacy 

 that the world has witnessed. The contest for domination between the 

 giants of old ocean— of sharks and devil-fishes, and saurians and 

 whales, pales into insignificance compared with the battle waged be- 

 tween the huge terrestrial reptiles, birds, elephants, mastodons, horses, 

 lions and man which has raged on terra firnia. From this have come 

 perfection of speed to one — power and energy to another, but, above 

 all, intelligence and the dominance of brain. Out of this highway, too, 

 run numerous and devious by-paths, the following of which furnishes 

 us with a host of strange and fanciful creations — adaptations to ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold, moisture and dryness, latitude and altitude, 

 plain and forest. 



But, not content with solid earth, animal life finds its way upward 

 into vegetation of various kinds and particularly in tree growth, reaches 

 adaptations which become so fixed that life elsewhere would be an 

 impossibility. This is especially marked in the great tangle of tropical 

 forests. In these the animal life of the tree tops assumes a most pro- 

 nounced character, which can scarcely be appreciated by one familiar 

 only with lesser forests of temperate regions. Pictures fail to show the 

 real density, for pictures must show the breaks and gaps to show at 

 all. But perhaps the most dominant thought in the presence of such 

 forest life is the superabundance of life, life everywhere, under every 

 scrap of loose bark, every tuft of grass, on branch, and twig and leaf. 

 In my despair of giving an adequate idea of this tropical tangle, I turn 

 to an article in Harper's Magazine by Lafcadio Hearn on a midsum- 

 mer trip to the West Indies, in which he quotes from DeKafz : 



When your eyes grow weary — if it is indeed possible for them to weary 

 of contemplating the exterior of these tremendous woods, try to penetrate a 

 little way into their interior. What an inextricable chaos it is! The sands of 

 the sea are not more closely pressed together than the trees are here — some 

 straight, some curved, some upright, some toppling, falling, or leaning against 

 one another, or heaped high upon each other. Climbing lianas, which cross from 

 one tree to the other, like ropes passing from mast to mast, help to fill up the 

 gaps in this treillage; and parasites — not timid parasites like ivy or moss, but 

 parasites that are grafted upon trees — dominate the primitive trunk, overwhelm 

 them, usurp the place of their foliage and fall back upon the soil forming 

 factitious weeping willows. You do not find here as in the great forests of the 

 north, the eternal monotony of beech and fir; this is the kingdom of infinite 

 variety — species, the most diverse, elbow each other, interlace, strangle each 

 other and down them. All ranks and orders are confounded as in a human 

 mob. 



