:::2« TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO ;*::::::- 



to buttress itself with aerial roots, as the weight of the 

 vine dragged downward ever more heavily. The poor 

 rooted giants appealed to us, as would birds or beasts 

 suffering in the coils of a serpent, and more than once 

 we released such a tree and gave it a new lease of life 

 — centuries it may be — by severing the vine at its 

 root. When, in the dead of night, the silence was 

 sometimes broken by the distant fall of one of these 

 trees, — a hissing crash followed by the dull roar of 

 the fall, — our feelings went out in sympathy for the 

 monarch which, for so many decades, had withstood 

 earthquakes and storms, only to be vanquished by the 

 insinuating foe, which had climbed up to the light of 

 day by means of the tree's sturdy trunk. 



Another phase of the struggles between vine and 

 tree was not uncommon. The vine would throw down 

 numerous roots, which took a fresh hold, and thus, 

 gradually, a dense interlacing of woody stems was 

 wound about the tree, fretting the helpless trunk with 

 an intricate network. The death of the imprisoned 

 tree ensued, but, instead of falling, it was held in place 

 by the vine and exposed to boring insects and Wood 

 Ants, which speedily reduced it to sawdust. Often we 

 saw such a framework of vines from which all signs of 

 the tree had vanished. 



Yet all these strusfffles and deaths were mere inci- 

 dents in the jungle life. The supremacy of the vine 

 and the death of the tree were two facts which he who 



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