156 The Field Naturalist 's Quarterly May 



hovering in the air like a kestrel ; then it suddenly drops a 

 yard or two, hovers again, takes a circling flight, another 

 hover, and it plunges for a moment in the water, afterwards 

 making off to the stakes of a fishing-net. The Portuguese 

 call this bird Guarda rio, River-watcher ; and the Smyrna 

 kingfisher they term Rei de camaram, King of the shrimpers. 

 The bats are flying in hundreds now, and a lighted candle 

 is stuck in the little joss-house in the stern of the boat, 

 hung with tawdry bits of red and gilt paper, and containing 

 the ordinary bedaubed clay figures of various gods. 



At the landing-place there is a crowd of sampans, and the 

 regular howling, shouting, and cursing ensues as we edge 

 our way in. The boat-people only ask double their proper 

 fare as they know us well, and are well contented with half 

 what they ask, whilst we are glad to get home just before 

 the storm breaks and the rain comes down in torrents. 



Symbiosis. 



By E. M. Wood. 



Now that the spring is with us once more the student of 

 nature rejoices, not only in the renewed greenness of the 

 earth, in the outspreading of young leaves, or in the appear- 

 ance of the first flowers of the year, but in the fact that 

 those problems of the life and growth of the plant-world, 

 with which he has become familiar through the medium of 

 text -books, are coming once more into play; and that he 

 may for himself watch the outward and visible signs of 

 the hidden processes working in their appointed seasons : 

 in a word, theories may become practice and individual 

 experiences. 



Of the mighty and wonderful doings of nature, the social 

 side of plant-life is not the least absorbing. As human 

 beings and the lower animals live in communities or colonies, 

 dependent upon one another for mutual help in the struggle 

 for existence, so also we may see the same thing among 

 animals and plants, between plants and plants, — those of 



