THE BABIRUSA HOG 169 



flora; oaks and palms, birches and bamboos, elms 

 and laurels all occur in more or less abundance. 

 Here a clump of tall F label laria raise their shapely 

 crowns to the torrid sky ; there a tangle of Cucumites 

 shows dull green in the cathedral twilight. Deeper in 

 the forest the trees interlace at the top ; the air is 

 close and steamy, reeking with excess of carbonic 

 acid; while lower forms of plant life mosses, lichens, 

 creepers flourish in sweating luxuriance. The thick 

 undergrowth swarms with curtseying leeches; the 

 boles of dead trees harbour great scorpions in their 

 rotting wood. The canopy, 200 feet overhead, 

 grows denser, the light fainter ; drops of moisture 

 glisten on every twig, and the ground underfoot is 

 black with rotted leaves. Through the forest flows 

 a small stream, green with conferva and afire with 

 dragon flies. 



The dark wall of foliage sways to and fro, as if 

 moved by a mighty wind ; silently there appear in 

 the forest depths a number of dusky forms, trunked 

 and tusked like elephants, silent, strong, and 

 sagacious a troop of mastodon. As they pass 

 along the opposite bank they show four tusks 

 instead of two, trunks shorter than an elephant's, 

 longer ears and legs; elephants in the making, rough 

 creatures half way between the little meritherium of 

 Eocene Egypt and the colossus of the Zoo. A 

 troop of monkeys (dryopithecus) disturbed by the 

 mastodon are seen in the trees, shouting in noisy 



