54 PARA. Chap. II. 



other climbing trees and plants, but the way the 

 matador sets about it is peculiar, and produces cer- 

 tainly a disagreeable impression. It springs up close 

 to the tree on which it intends to fix itself, and the 

 wood of its stem grows by spreading itself like a 

 plastic mould over one side of the trunk of its sup- 

 porter. It then puts forth, from each side, an arm- 

 like branch, which grows rapidly, and looks as though 

 a stream of sap were flowing and hardening as it 

 went. This adheres closely to the trunk of the 

 victim and the two arms meet on the opposite side and 

 blend together. These arms are put forth at somewhat 

 regular intervals in mounting upwards, and the victim, 

 when its strangler is full-grown, becomes tightly elapsed 

 by a number of inflexible rings. These rings gi'adually 

 grow larger as the Murderer flourishes, rearing its crown 

 of foliage to the sky mingled with that of its neighbour, 

 and in course of time they kill it by stopping the flow of 

 its sap. The strange spectacle then remains of the selfish 

 parasite clasping in its arms the lifeless and decaying 

 body of its victim, which had been a help to its own 

 growth. Its ends have been served — it has flowered and 

 fruited, reproduced and disseminated its kind ; and now, 

 when the dead trunk moulders away, its OAvn end ap- 

 proaches ; its support is gone, and itself also falls. 



The Murderer Sipo merely exhibits, in a more con- 

 spicuous manner than usual, the struggle which neces- 

 sarily exists amongst vegetable forms in these crowded 

 forests, where individual is competing with individual 

 and species with species, all striving to reach light and 

 air in order to unfold their leaves and perfect their 



