::::::::»>[ T\YO BIRD- LOVERS IN MEXICO scC"-" 



insects, for hints concerning the complicated depend- 

 ence of all the life about us, — bird on insect, insect 

 on plant, plant on both, Avhicli ever links even the 

 extremes of Nature. 



Sitting- in the shade of our tents during the heat of 

 midday, we became interested in a flowering vine which 

 twined up the young trees to which our tent-ropes 

 were fastened. We found that it was a species of Birth- 

 wort (Aristolochia), related to the Dutchman's-Pipe of 

 the United States. 



Until we learned its affinities, we called it the 

 Trumpet-Trap Vine. It was an interesting illustration 

 of the carrion blossoms which I mentioned a few para- 

 graphs back. The odour was not strong, and tliough 

 there were hundreds of Howers on the vine, we could not 

 detect the unpleasant scent unless we carefully smelled a 

 number of blossoms at once. They gave forth a faint 

 odour of musk, very different from the odours of other 

 species of this family, which are tainted with the scent 

 of carrion, or rotten fisli, while a West Indian variety 

 has an odour exactly like decayed tobacco. Slight as 

 was the scent, it seemed more tlian once to attract 

 burying beetles, wliich we noticed bumping clumsily 

 against the Howers, misled in their search for a suit- 

 able place to deposit their eggs. These were unin- 

 vited interlopers, which could benefit neither the 

 blossoms nor themselves, and which soon went hum- 

 ming off into the woods. 



-4 294 ^ 



