338 THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE IN THE FOREST. 
mals may take things easy, but not so the trees. In the great cities of 
Europe men have to carry on just such a struggle, but plants in tem- 
perate climates jog along quietly; here the case is reversed. From 
dawn to sunset trees are hard at work—you can almost see some of them 
growing—and as may naturally be supposed, they must have a little 
rest at night. The tree is thoroughly exhausted; its branches lose their 
stiffness, while the leaves droop and fold themselves together. Unlike 
those of temperate climates, the trees of the tropics all, more or less, 
show these signs of exhaustion toward sunset. 
Forest trees have not only to contend with each other,—this is a fair 
fight where if not equally matched they are nearly so,—but the strug- 
gle must be carried on against interlopers of various kinds. Creeping, 
twining, and scrambling vines are determined somehow or other to get 
a share of the sunlight. ‘There is plenty of room at the the top,” but 
they have to get there. Without light they are like the young trees, 
poor, sickly, washed-out things, hardly able to to raise themselves even 
with the aid of the stems of trees or other climbers like themselves. 
Some few do succeed, however, one way or another—one species of Big- 
nonia by means of veritable claws—and when they get to the top, how 
they do revenge themselves on the torest trees which have stood in their 
light. We can fancy one of them saying, ‘Now, Iam going to smother 
you.” And it does so in many cases. It branches out here, there, and 
everywhere, spreading its leaves upon those of its support, until even- 
tually a wealth of brilliant flowers open out, eclipsing those of the trees 
altogether. As its branches extend the stem swells and hardens until 
it looks like a great hempen cable, which, if it happens to be a twiner, 
constricts its support in serpent-like folds until perhaps the tree is stran- 
gled to death. But this does not matter, for by that time the rampant 
monster has spread itself over a dozen giants of the forest where it 
revels in the sunlight and seems to crow over its victory. 
Perhaps the most insidious enemy against which the forest tree has 
to contend is the class of stranglers such as clusias and figs. Birds 
eat the fruit of these horrible plants, and deposit the seeds in the top- 
most forks of some forest giant, where they germinate. One of these 
succeeds in getting ahead, and, as its leaves open, it extends a number 
of aérial roots down the trunk of the tree until they reach the earth. 
There they go, crawling down, and like very long worms, apparently quite 
harmless, clinging to the bark, but seeming otherwise entirely wanting 
in either ability or desire to injure. Now the strangler has gained its 
footing and begins to feel its power. The aérial roots expand laterally 
until they actually run into each other and cover the trunk. We can 
almost fancy the magnificent forest tree protesting strongly, as, octopus- 
like, the clusia begins to compress and strangle it. It may protest as 
much as it likes, but that makes no difference; the clusia grows stronger 
and stronger, until by and by, as the strangler opens its magnificent 
waxy flowers to the sun and glories in its conquest, the poor, unfortu- 
