.8^. DEATH IN THE FOREST. 531 



Rarely does such an accident happen to a healthy tree. When 

 nothing has occurred to weaken it, the branches interlace with those 

 of others in such a manner that a fall is almost impossible. Wood- 

 cutters have often to clear away several trunks before they can fell the 

 one they require. The tree is almost invariably dead before it falls 

 naturally. Perhaps, every branch has become dry and decayed, and 

 then broken away little by little, until nothing remains but a bare 

 stem. The roots also have rotted in the ground and no longer serve 

 as anchors, so that all support is lost at both summit and base. Then 

 comes a heavy rain-fall or flood, and the dead trunk crashes down, 

 carrying away everything in its course. 



In paddling up some of the smaller rivers of Guiana dead and 

 dying trees may be seen on every side. In various stages of decay, 

 some straining to keep alive a branch or two, they provide hollows for 

 parrots to build in, and food for the wood-ants, which riddle them 

 with their tunnels, and hang their oval black nests in the forks. Here 

 are the remains of magnificent trunks over a hundred feet high, with 

 bare stems and a few ragged strips of bark, only kept from falling by 

 bush ropes and parasites. Perhaps one has fallen across the creek, 

 seriously impeding its navigation. Festooned with creepers, they do 

 not look so unsightly as might be supposed ; while large bushes 

 perched in the topmost forks form, as it were, a flowery pall. Some 

 of the most handsome are the clusias, with their smooth stem and 

 shining leaves, and flowers like single camellias. Some have petals 

 a pure white, others tinted with rose-colour. Yet, with all its beauty, 

 this plant is a deadly foe to the forest tree. In Jamaica it is called 

 the " Scotch attorney," that gentleman being proverbially noted for 

 working plantations to his own profit, 



Clusias are not the only stranglers ; different kinds of wild figs 

 are quite as destructive. These are also clean and sleek in limb and 

 foliage, but have no showy flowers. Their fruit varies in different 

 species from the size of a pea to that of a cherry, and is greedily 

 devoured by birds. Of a rich dark green, their clumps contrast 

 favourably with the decrepit trees on which they sit, and which they 

 appear to hold together by interlacing aerial roots. 



Unable to fight for themselves in the struggle, these stranglers 

 have become established in the forks of the trees, where the birds 

 have dropped their seeds in cracks of the bark. Here, among mosses 

 and in congenial positions, they soon germinate and insinuate their 

 aerial roots into crevices and among the damp epiphytes, adhering 

 very closely to the tree, but deriving no nourishment from it. Slowly 

 they creep down towards the earth, broadening as they lengthen, 

 while branches and leaves are developed above. To all appearance 

 they are quite harmless, apparently taking advantage of their host 

 merely to get a share of the sunlight, and, like the thousands of 

 epiphytic orchids, bromelias, arums, ferns, and mosses already 

 resting securely on their immense limbs, causing no injury. Never- 



2M 2 



