PLANTATIONS 



Among the birds of Brazil one might say that every speciality is 

 represented. If the natural fauna of the country is preserved, even 

 in the areas of human cultivation, it will gradually adapt itself to 

 the latter. But the natural conditions of animal life must be main- 

 tained; and this refers, above all, to the indigenous plant-life of 

 Brazil. 



For this reason it is doubtful whether further steps should be 

 taken to afforest Brazil with the AustraUan eucalyptus. This tree 

 has the peculiarity that its lancet- or sickle-shaped leaves hft them- 

 selves perpendicularly sunwards, for which reason, and because 

 the foliage is thin, the tree casts hardly any shade. A peculiar 

 shimmer is apparent in a wood of eucalyptus-trees, because the 

 leaves twist at the slightest breath of air (Plate 25). In such woods 

 the Brazilian birds can find no place of refuge, no opportunity of 

 nest-building ; the intrusion of the eucalyptus means the suppression 

 of the indigenous plant and animal life, and the elimination of areas 

 which, as I have already shown, ensured the health and prosperity 

 of Nature and of the plantations. And more : the introduction of 

 foreign plants and trees has often had disastrous consequences, 

 inasmuch as some hitherto unremarked inhabitant of the imported 

 plant, which did no damage to the latter, has suddenly left it for 

 the growing plants or crops of its new home, and has destroyed 

 them. For example, with the American vine the Phylloxera was 

 imported into Europe; with Indian cotton-seed the Rosy Cater- 

 pillar found its way into Egypt and Brazil. On the other hand, the 

 eucalyptus woods might suddenly be devastated by some inhabitant 

 of their new home, as the coffee of Ceylon was destroyed by a 

 fungus. 



It has often been observed that a plant introduced or accidentally 

 smuggled into a foreign country first multiplies enormously, and 

 then perishes. In Ceylon I found two widely-distributed Brazilian 

 plants, the Sensitive Plant and the Cambara or Lantana. This is a 

 shrub with very pretty red and yellow flowers. The wife of a Governor 

 of Ceylon had been impressed by the beauty of this shrub during 

 a visit to Brazil; so much so that she imported it into Ceylon and 

 planted it in her garden. She had, however, reckoned without a 

 certain black bird, the Madras bulbul, which fancied the berries 

 of the new shrub ; and since, when he ate them, he sowed the seeds 

 in the way natural to birds, it was not long before the plant reached 

 Indo-China, and became a pest there, and in India too; while in 

 1900 it became obnoxious in Honolulu, whither it had been brought 



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