36 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



of goats kept by the English colonists of Jamai- 

 ca. The goats, animals essentially climbers by 

 nature, climb up the most abrupt declivities of 

 the rocks covered with melo cacti and echinocacti. 

 There, using their horns for the purpose, they 

 root up these plants, and roll them down into the 

 valley, where, as a preparation for eating them, 

 they play with them as a child would play with 

 a toy balloon, until, by dint of rolling and tossing 

 them about on the pebbles, the thorns have been 

 all shaken out. Then the goats are able to feast 

 upon them without damage to their mouths, just 

 as though the thorns of the colossal cactuses 

 were as little to be dreaded as are these downy 

 representatives of those hard and tough spikes, 

 produced by their sisters in miniature. 



Stapelias. 



There are other plants, of a different family, 

 but the forms of which recall those of the cac- 

 tuses : these are the stapelias. You will not fail 

 to remark their strange flowers thick, fleshy, 

 violaceous, set with rough hairs, and having the 

 form of a star. Do not approach too near this 



