THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE IN THE FOREST. 339 
nate victim droops and dies. Then the trunk becomes diseased, wood 
ants begin their work, and finally nothing is left but the hollow cylinder 
of the strangler. 
There is yet another foe to the giant of the forest, the parasite or 
bloodsucker, the leech of the vegetable kingdom. Like the leech, it is 
not very large in comparison with its victim, but that does not matter, 
as it makes up in numbers what it lacks in size. These plants, called 
bird vines (Loranthacew), are, like the stranglers, distributed by birds. 
The seeds are covered with glutinous pulp, which, when they are 
dropped by birds, enables them to adhere to the branches of the trees. 
Here they sprout, and with their young leaves, produce aérial roots, 
covered with suckers, which run along and insinuate themselves into 
the cracks of the bark, continually nourishing themselves on the life- 
blood of their victims. As the loranth extends itself, it seems to revel 
in the mischief it is producing, looking bright and happy in contrast 
with its miserable victim, whose limbs begin to wither and fall, until 
ultimately the branch becomes dry and brittle, when perhaps some day 
it breaks off by its own weight and comes to the ground, bringing its 
murderer with it. Sometimes the whole tree will be covered with para- 
sites and ultimately succumb to the continual drain, but more often it 
survives in a most miserable state of weakness, being hardly able to 
produce flowers, much less fruit. Like aman suffering under a chronic 
disease, it drags along its melancholy existence until all its branches 
wither, when the parasites, having nothing to live on, suffer a just ret- 
ribution. However, there are always plenty of others to keep up the 
fight, as the species are very numerous, while the seeds germinate by 
thousands. 
Although there is a scarcity of the larger animals in the forest, this 
is compensated by the wealth and variety of the insect world. Ants 
are present in myriads, some of them making sad havoe on the foliage 
and adding to the numerous foes against which the forest giant has to 
contend. Then, there is the great army of wood ants, or termites, 
which are the scavengers. When a tree is elbowed, smothered, strangled, 
or sucked to death, the wood ants are ever in readiness to dispose of 
its remains. However hard the timber may be, it is not too tough for 
these insignificant creatures. To look at, they appear the weakest of 
all insects. Unable to stand even the subdued light of the forest, hav- 
ing to build covered tunnels so as to be always in darkness, they are 
nevertheless able in a comparatively short time to make a fallen trunk 
as fragile as an eggshell. In wandering through the forest you come 
upon an enormous trunk lying across your path. Itis too large to 
step over, so you put your foot upon it, when, with a crunch, crunch, the 
apparently hard timber crumbles like a mummy, while the wood ants 
are scattering in every direction to get under cover. In the larval state 
the insect world is also the sworn foe of the tree. The elegant palm 
has its canker at the heart in the shape of the borer beetle. These 
