286 OUE COMMON FBTJITS. 



for above a century, there was so little acquaintance witl 

 the manner of their growth that it was generally sup 

 posed they grew each one on a separate stalk. As the 

 name imports, they are natives of Brazil, flourishing 

 chiefly in mighty forests on the banks of the Amazon anc 

 Orinoco, the tree being one of the most majestic in th< 

 New World, growing rapidly and attaining the height o: 

 about 120 ft., though the trunk rarely exceeds a yard ii 

 diameter. The branches bend downwards, like palm 

 fronds, the leaves, which are more than 2 ft. in length 

 growing chiefly at the extremities. Humboldt was not ii 

 the country during the blossoming season, and the natives 

 varied in their statements as to even the colour of th< 

 flowers, some saying that they were violet, others affirm 

 ing them to be yellow. The fruit, which does not mak( 

 its appearance before the tree has attained its 15th year 

 is a drupe as large, sometimes, as a child's head, and ex 

 ternally not unlike a Cocoa Nut,* the woody part ripening 

 in about two months after its development into a peri 

 carp or shell half an inch thick, and so hard that th< 

 sharpest saw can hardly penetrate it. To the centra 

 partition are attached the seeds or nuts, from 15 to 21 

 being the general number in each ; and as these become 

 loosened in time, their rattle, when the fruit falls fron 

 the tree, is a most tantalizing sound to the poor mon 

 keys, who, passionately fond of the nuts, are quite unabl< 

 to break open the strong box in which Nature has trea 

 sured them, and must therefore wait until the process o: 

 decay accomplishes this for them, when they too hole 

 their juvia festival, joined in by squirrels, parrots, anc 

 most other small denizens of the forest, for the shells o: 

 the individual seeds offer no insuperable obstacle. The 

 continual falling of such large bodies from so great j 

 height, hard and heavy as they are, renders it rather dan 

 gerous to pass under these trees when the fruit is fullj 

 ripe ; and it used to be said that in some places tht 

 savages were accustomed to carry wooden shields ove] 

 their heads when they entered the forest at this season 



See Plate I., fig. 5. 



